Kshitij Prasad was called up the NCB officials on Thursday.

Mumbai/ New Delhi:

Film producer Kshitij Prasad, who was arrested last week by the Narcotic Control Bureau in a widening drugs probe linked to Sushant Singh Rajput death, was “harassed and blackmailed” by the officers of the anti-drugs probe agency, his lawyer Satish Maneshinde told the Bombay High Court on Sunday. Mr Prasad was “forced to falsely implicate” filmmaker Karan Johar and his other top executives, the lawyer underlined. “NCB officers said they would let me off if I implicated either Karan Johar, Somel Mishra , Rakhi, Apoorva, Neeraj or Rahil,” the lawyer quoted him as saying in the court. 

The NCB officers “asked me to falsely allege that they consumed drugs”. “I refused to comply with this despite the pressure being mounted on me as I did not know any of these people personally… and I did not wish to falsely implicate anyone,” Mr Prasad was quoted as saying. 

One of the investigating officers – Sameer Wankhede – has been named in the statement. “Sameer Wankhede told him (Kshitij Prasad) that since he did not want to cooperate he would teach him a lesson and made him sit on the floor next to his chair. Sameer Wankhede then put the shoe of his foot near Kshitij’s face and proclaimed that this was his true aukad (status),” the lawyer told the court, adding that other officers around “laughed at this plight”.

Last week, Karan Johar had denied claims that Kshitij Prasad was associated with his firm – the Dharma Productions. Mr Prasad joined Dharmatic Entertainment, a company linked to Dharma Productions, in November 2019 as one of the executive producers on contract basis for a project which eventually did not materialise, Mr Johar had said.

In a statement, Satish Maneshinde on Sunday said: “Kshitij Prasad was produced today (Sunday) for remand before the Ld Addl Chief Metropolitan Magistrate through video conference. Before the proceedings began, I informed the Magistrate that Kshitij was harassed and blackmailed to make a statement apart from third degree and ill treatment.”

Kshitij Prasad was called up by the NCB officials on Thursday (September 24), when he was in Delhi; they wanted to search his Mumbai home. He returned to Mumbai the next day. The NCB team “found nothing in the house apart from the end bit of a stale and dry cigarette butt in the balcony”, and the team “began insisting it was a ganja joint”, his lawyer has said. “Upon his wife’s insistence , the word ‘believed’ to be a ganja joint was inserted in the panchnama (probe record),” his lawyer said.

He was taken to the probe agency’s office with two other friends on Friday.