MUMBAI: The Mumbai Police’s special investigation team (SIT) had summoned actor Shah Rukh Khan’s manager Pooja Dadlani on Monday, but she failed to turn up citing ‘health issues’.

Chikky Pandey, actor Chunkey Pandey’s brother, whom one of the witnesses in the cruise drug bust case K P Gosavi had contacted to get in touch with Dadlani, also failed to turn up before the SIT, citing Covid-19. Pandey reportedly helped Gosavi to get in touch with Dadlani, sources said.

The SIT was constituted by Mumbai police after Prabhakar Sail, personal bodyguard of Gosavi, filed a complaint with the MRA Marg police. Sail had alleged that he had overheard Gosavi talking over the phone to one Sam D’Souza about extorting money in the drug case and a Rs 8 crore payment to be made to NCB zonal chief Sameer Wankhede.

Later, three more applications on similar lines were submitted to tMRA Marg police. D’Souza claimed Dadlani paid Rs 50 lakh but the money was returned after they realised Gosavi, who promised to prevent the arrest of Khan’s son Aryan, was a cheat. ACP Milind Khetle (Azad Maidan division) has been leading the SIT probe and will submit his report to the police commissioner.

The SIT has so far recorded statements of 15 people and is likely to summon more people. Statements of Sail, hotelier Ranjitsingh Bindra and one Mayur Ghule have been recorded. One Sunil Patil appeared before the Mumbai police’s SIT on Sunday evening to give his statement. The SIT also recorded the statement of another person, Vijay Pagare, who claimed to be privy to pre-raid discussions and told the city police that Aryan was framed by certain individuals to make money.