28-09-2020


Film executive Kshitij Prasad, who was arrested last week by the Narcotics Control Bureau in a widening drugs probe linked to Sushant Singh Rajput death, was "harassed and blackmailed" by the officers of the anti-drugs probe agency, his lawyer Satish Maneshinde told a Mumbai court on Sunday. Mr Prasad was "forced to falsely implicate" filmmaker Karan Johar and his other top executives, the lawyer underlined.

"NCB officers said they would let me off if I implicated either Karan Johar, Somel Mishra, Rakhi, Apoorva, Neeraj or Rahil," the lawyer quoted him as saying in the court. The investigating officers "asked me to falsely allege that they consumed drugs," he said. "I refused to comply with this despite the pressure being mounted on me as I did not know any of these people personally and I did not wish to falsely implicate anyone," Mr Prasad was quoted as saying.

One of the investigating officers - Sameer Wankhede - has been named in the lawyer's statement. "Sameer Wankhede told him (Kshitij Prasad) that since he did not want to cooperate, he would teach him a lesson and made him sit on the floor next to his chair. Sameer Wankhede then put the shoe of his foot near Kshitij's face and proclaimed that this was his true aukad (status)," the lawyer told the court, adding that other officers around "laughed at this plight".

The incident "severely traumatised Kshitij, who had never been in this kind of situation before. After over 48 hours in such custody, he was extremely fatigued and shaken. He requested to speak with Sameer Wankhede alone and enquired if he had offended him," Mr Maneshinde told the court, stressing that Mr Prasad "also reiterated that he would very much like to speak with his lawyer or family".