BJP leader claims, Man close to NCP is mastermind behind Mumbai cruise drug bust conspiracy,

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Mohit Bharatiya alias Kamboj on Saturday said that a man called Sunil Patil, who has been associated with the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) for over two decades, was the brain behind the cruise drug bust conspiracy case in which Aryan Khan, son of actor Shah Rukh Khan, was arrested last month. Patil was a close friend of former home minister Anil Deshmukh’s son Hrishikesh, Kamboj added during a media conference on Saturday.

He said NCP minister Nawab Malik had set up a “wrong narrative” to malign the image of the BJP and Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) officer Sameer Wankhede.

“Sunil Patil gave Kiran Gosavi’s phone number to Sam D’ Souza. He was told that Gosavi would coordinate with the NCB,” Kamboj said, adding Patil scripted the entire plan and deployed his own person in the party with “a motive to trap NBC officers in the case”.

Touted as an “independent witness” of the NCB in the drug case, Gosavi is presently behind bars in connection with



a cheating case in Pune.

D’Souza’s name cropped up during the probe as the person who allegedly brokered a deal between Shah Rukh Khan’s manager Pooja Dadlani and panch witness Gosavi in the Cordelia Cruise ship drug bust case to “help” Aryan Khan.

Kamboj claimed he had the transcript of the WhatsApp chat between Patil and D’ Souza. In these chats, Patil is heard informing D’ Souza that he had big leads related to drug trading involving 27 persons in the cruise party, Kamboj said.

According to Kamboj, “Sunil Patil was known to almost all the top NCP leaders and ministers. He played an important role between 1999 and 2014 in carrying out official transfers in connivance with the home department. However, during the BJP government from 2014 to 2019, he went underground.” The change of government in 2019 saw resurfacing of Patil, Kamboj added.

Kamboj said he is in the know of more information in the matter and would release the same with documentary evidence in time.