Maharashtra minister Nawab Malik on Friday took a swipe at Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) Mumbai director Sameer Wankhede, suggesting the tables have turned in the high-profile drugs-on-cruise case. “You’ll see that the situation has completely changed. The man who was dragging Aryan Khan to the NCB office is now behind bars. The man who was doing everything to ensure that Aryan Khan and others are not given bail was knocking on the court’s door yesterday,” Malik was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.

Malik was referring to Sameer Wankhede, who is in the eye of a political storm following allegations of extortion in the cruise ship drugs case in which Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan’s son Aryan Khan is facing trial.

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Malik was also referring to Kiran Gosavi, who was arrested by Pune City Police on Thursday on charges of cheating and will remain in custody till November 5. Kiran Gosavi is a witness of the NCB in the case.

Recently, another witness in the drugs case, Prabhakar Sail, claimed that he overheard Gosavi telling one Sam D’Souza over the phone about a demand of ₹25 crore, and “to settle at ₹18 crore as they have to give ₹8 crore to Sameer Wankhede” after Aryan Khan was brought to the NCB office following the raid.

Also read: Aryan Khan gets bail, Bombay high court to dictate judgment today

Sameer Wankhede’s wife Kranti Redkar Wankhede on Thursday wrote a letter to Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray, seeking justice in the wake of the “attack on her family and her personal life”. “Being a Marathi person, I expect some justice from your side as my personal life is unnecessarily being dragged into a controversy. Had late Balasaheb Thackeray (father of Uddhav Thackeray) been alive today, he would not have tolerated such personal attack on a woman’s dignity,” she wrote in the letter.

Responding to the letter, Malik said, “His (Sameer Wankhede) family wrote to CM yesterday that they’re Marathis and being a Marathi, the CM should help them. Nawab Malik’s family too has been in this city for 70 years. I was born in 1959 and have been a citizen of this city. Is Nawab Malik not a Marathi?”

Sameer Wankhede is facing the departmental vigilance probe.

Nawab Malik has levelled a string of allegations against the NCB official, including illegal phone tapping.

Meanwhile, Aryan Khan was on Thursday granted bail by the Bombay High Court, following multiple rejections of his bail pleas in the drugs case. He was arrested on October 3 following a raid on a cruise ship off the Mumbai coast—a case that triggered a series of controversies and put the NCB and its officials under the spotlight.

Aryan Khan is likely to walk out of Mumbai’s Arthur jail, where he is lodged, in a day or two once the detailed order of the court is out.