Nationalist Congress Party leader Nawab Malik was supposed to expose something major against the Narcotics Control Bureau in connection with the Aryan Khan drugs case at a press conference on Friday. However, the minister postponed the date of the revelation and claimed that during the same raid, the NCB let off two people from the cruise. One is the brother-in-law of a BJP leader. The Maharashtra minister said in a press conference on Saturday, he will reveal the name of the BJP leader, who he claimed is a high-profile leader.

“After the raid, NCB officer Sameer Wankhede said 8-10 people were held. How can an official who conducts an entire operation give an indefinite answer? If 10 people were held then why were two people let off? And of the two, one was the brother-in-law of a high-profile BJP leader,” Nawab Malik said.

The Aryan Khan case has brought the Maharashtra government and the NCB to loggerheads. Though Shiv Sena has not commented on Aryan Khan’s arrest, in particular, the NCP and the Congress in Maharashtra have termed the arrest as a forgery. Nawab Malik has released videos of KV Gosavi and Manish Bhanushali — two outsiders– visiting the NCB office in connection with the case. KV Gosavi is the person with whom Aryan Khan’s photo went viral and the NCB claimed that the person in the photo has no link with the agency.

While the NCP is upping the ante against the NCB, the I-T department is conducting raids on the premises of commercial entities linked to NCP leader and Maharashtra deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar.

Linking Aryan Khan’s arrest with that of Rhea Chakraborty, Nawab Malik said both were for publicity. Nawab Malik’s son-in-law Sameer Khan was also arrested by the NCB in January this year in connection with a drugs case. 

On the allegation of NCB letting off two people during the cruise raid and one of them being related to a BJP leader, Maharashtra BJP leader Pravin Darekar said, “Malik is making only political statements. The claims made by Malik are baseless. If he has any proof then he should give inputs to the investigating agency. I don’t want to talk about his son-in-law. Whenever he (Malik) gets a chance, he tries to vent out his anger against the NCB. The NCB has very clearly clarified its stand.”