Cordelia cruise drugs bust: SIT rules out false implication of fashion model Munmun Dhamecha: NCB

On May 1, 2023, Dhamecha moved a discharge plea through her lawyer Kashif Khan before a special court designated under the NDPS (the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act) claiming that she was not found in possession of the narcotic substance, nor was she found to have consumed it

MUMBAI: The Special Investigating Team (SIT) has ruled out the allegations made by fashion model Munmun Dhamecha that she was falsely implicated by the Narcotics Control Bureau’s (NCB’s) former zonal director Sameer Wankhede in the Cordelia cruise drugs bust on October 3, 2021.

The NCB in its reply further stated that, “during the forensic examination of the mobile phone of the applicant (Dhamecha) suspicious chats, audio notes were found in which she is helping her friend in procuring drugs in Goa which confirms that she is connected to persons involved in sale of drugs. (Anshuman Poyrekar/HT PHOTO)

On May 1, 2023, Dhamecha moved a discharge plea through her lawyer Kashif Khan before a special court designated under the NDPS (the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act) claiming that she was not found in possession of the narcotic substance, nor was she found to have consumed it.

The NCB on Thursday filed a reply to the model’s discharge plea, stating that she had in her own statement dated October 3, 2021 conceded that she purchased 5 grams of charas (a cannabis concentrate drug used for psychedelic experience) from Goa for her own consumption. Besides, she had accepted that when NCB officials went to search her cabin on the cruise liner, she threw the packet of charas from her jeans pocket. Thus, she had accepted that the drugs found from the room belonged to her.

Besides, the NCB in its reply further stated that, “during the forensic examination of the mobile phone of the applicant (Dhamecha) suspicious chats, audio notes were found in which she is helping her friend in procuring drugs in Goa which confirms that she is connected to persons involved in sale of drugs.”

The agency said that there was evidence to show that she was consuming drugs.

In her discharge plea, Dhamecha had pleaded parity with the case of actor Shah Rukh Khan’s son Aryan Khan who was given clean chit by a special investigation team of the agency after conducting reinvestigation into the case.

However, the NCB said, “No complaint was filed against Aryan Khan as no evidence was found that could prove Aryan Khan’s involvement with the recovered 06 Gm of Charas from the possession of Arbaaz Merchant in the instant case. Further Arbaaz Merchant in his statement stated that the recovered Charas was for his own consumption and Aryan Khan was not aware of the 06 Gm charas recovered from Arbaaz’s possession.”

The agency claimed that Dhamecha’s case was different from that of Khan’s and therefore she was not entitled to seek parity.

Acting on a specific tip-off, a team of the NCB officials, headed by Wankhede, had on October 2, 2021, searched certain passengers slated to take Cordelia cruise to Goa from the International Cruise Terminal at Green Gate in Mumbai and their rooms booked on the cruise ship.

During the search, the agency claimed to have seized multiple drugs like 13 grams of cocaine, 5 grams of mephedrone, 21 grams of charas, and 22 pills of MDMA (ecstasy) and ₹1.33 lakh in cash from the cruise. The NCB team intercepted all 14 persons and after hours of interrogation placed 25-year-old Aryan, Merchant, 28, and Dhamecha, 30, under arrest on the afternoon of October 3.

The agency had claimed that they had found 5 grams of charas in the possession of Merchant, and he and Aryan had purportedly admitted that they both were going to consume the contraband material on the cruise. The prosecution against Aryan and five others was, however, dropped after the SIT found that there was no evidence to proceed against them.