Mumbai:

Aryan Khan, son of megastar Shah Rukh Khan, will be produced before a court in Mumbai today, a day after he and seven others were arrested following a raid at a party on a cruise ship off the coast of Mumbai by the Narcotics Control Bureau or NCB.

The 23-year-old was produced in court on Sunday evening where the anti-drugs agency was granted custody of those arrested till today.

The high-profile raid on Sunday yielded 13 grams of cocaine, 21 grams of charas, 22 pills of MDMA and 5 grams of MD in all, the NCB has said. The charges brought against Aryan Khan include purchase, possession and use of banned substances, it added.

Aryan Khan’s lawyer Satish Maneshinde demanded bail, saying that his client had been arrested only on the basis of chat messages. “Aryan had no ticket, no cabin or seat on board the cruise. He was there because he had been invited. He didn’t even have a boarding pass. Nothing has been found on him. He was arrested on the basis of chat only.”

Besides Aryan Khan, the anti-drugs agency arrested seven others who were detained from the ship – Munmun Dhamecha, Nupur Sarika, Ismeet Singh, Mohak Jaswal, Vikrant Chhoker, Gomit Chopra, Arbaaz Merchant.

The NCB team boarded the Goa-bound ship disguised as passengers on Saturday morning, sources said. According to officials, the party began after the ship left Mumbai and was at sea. The raids began at 10 am and went on till 2 pm, it said.

During the operation, the suspects were searched and different drugs were recovered from them, which they had hidden in their clothes, undergarments and purses, an NCB official told news agency PTI.

The cruise company in a statement on Sunday said it had nothing to do with the incident.