Being targeted over dead mother, her religion, alleges NCB's Sameer Wankhede

Mumbai, Oct 25: The Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) zonal director Sameer Wankhede, who is leading Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan's son Aryan Khan's drugs case on Monday alleged "vendetta" as he slammed Maharashtra minister Nawab Malik's repeated attacks on his character and family.

The NCB official said he was pained by the nature of personal defamatory and slanderous attacks by the minister without any justification.

"The series of acts of the minister over the past few days have put me and my family under tremendous mental and emotional pressure," Wankhede said in a statement.

Maharashtra NCP minister Nawab Malik on Monday claimed that Narcotics Control Bureau's zonal director Sameer Wankhede used forged documents including his birth certificate.

Malik tweeted a photo of the purported certificate, saying "Sameer Dawood Wankhede ka yahan se shuru hua furjiwada. (Sameer Dawood Wankhede's document forging started from here)."

An NCB team led by Wankhede earlier this month allegedly seized drugs onboard a cruise ship off the Mumbai coast following which Aryan Khan, the son of Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan, was arrested on October 3.

Malik has repeatedly termed the cruise drugs bust case as "fake".

On Monday, the document posted by Malik on Twitter mentioned the name of the NCB official's father as Dawood. Wankhede said his father's name is Dnyandev, who was an excise official.

Malik has been targeting Wankhede after his son-in-law Sameer Khan was arrested in an alleged drug case.
The minister had claimed that NCB officials booked Sameer Khan under wrong charges and no banned drug was found in his possession.

Malik, who is also the NCP spokesperson, recently claimed that his government will soon put Wankhede behind the bars.

On Monday, talking to a news channel in Nanded, Malik claimed that Wankhede is a Muslim by birth.

"In the past 15 days, whenever I spoke on various subjects like the Maldives tour (of Wankhede), I didn't get any answers and they were termed as political allegations. But, now the truth has come out," he said.
Malik stated that earlier the BJP had said his son-in-law and Aryan Khan are Muslims. Later, the BJP's "troll army" tried to create an environment, making it a Hindu-Muslim issue via Wankhede, he alleged.

"NCB zonal director Wankhede's name is 'Sameer Dawood Wankhede', and he is a Muslim by birth. I have published his birth certificate (online). I had to make an effort to find it...he got the IRS job on bogus certificate...I shall reveal more such acts of his 'bogusgiri'," he said.

Malik also alleged that by "hiding" his religion, he (Wankhede) obtained fake documents and through this, the right of a backward class candidate was snatched.

Notably, Union minister Ramdas Athawale on Sunday came out in support of Wankhede and said targeting a Dalit officer who is doing good work is not right.

Terming Malik's allegations against Wankhede as "baseless" and "mischievous", Athawale had defended the officer, saying he has not done anything wrong. Athawale had also accused Malik of trying to give a religious and casteist colour while targeting Wankhede.

Meanwhile, reacting to Malik's claims, Wankhede in a press release said the minister's act of publishing his personal information on Twitter was "defamatory in nature and unnecessary invasion of his family's privacy".

Wankhede said this was intended to malign him, his family, his father and late mother.

In the statement, Wankhede mentioned that his father Dnyandev Kachruji Wankhede retired as senior police inspector of the state Excise department, Pune, in June 2007. His father is a Hindu and his late mother Zaheeda was a Muslim, the official said.

Wankhede said he belongs to a "composite, multi-religious and secular family in true Indian tradition" and he is proud of his heritage.

The NCB official also mentioned that he married Dr Shabana Qureshi in 2006 under the Special Marriage Act. Both of them divorced mutually through a civil court in 2016. Later, in 2017, he married Kranti Redkar, the official added.