India / Mumbai Police order probe into extortion allegations against Sameer Wankhede

Mumbai: The Mumbai Police have set up an inquiry team to look into the complaints of alleged extortion against Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) officers, including zonal director Sameer Wankhede, who are probing the drugs-on-cruise case.

News agency PTI reported that the police have already deputed police officers for inquiry into as many as four separate extortion complaints. It cited a senior official familiar with the matter.

Providing more details on the inquiry team set up by the Mumbai Police, the senior official said that the team will be conducting its own inquiry into the four complaints, which were filed by an independent witness in the NCB case, Prabhakar Sail, and lawyers Sudha Dwivedi, Kanishka Jain, and Nitin Deshmukh. The Mumbai Police already recorded Sail's statements on Tuesday and Wednesday, but now all the complaints have been clubbed together.

Assistant commissioner of police Milind Khetle, police inspector Ajay Sawant, assistant PI Shrikant Karkar, and sub-inspector Prakash Gawali will be part of the inquiry team, according to PTI. In this process, the team will receive additional assistance from Dilip Sawant, the additional commissioner of police (South Region) who will supervise the inquiry, as well as from DCP Hemrajsingh Bagul, who will assist Sawant as the supervisory officer.

The order of inquiry was issued by Vishwas Nangre Patil, the joint commissioner of police (law and order).

Meanwhile, the NCB said on Wednesday that zonal director Sameer Wankhede will remain the investigating officer in the drugs-on-cruise case until substantial information is found against him. However, an NCB probe team, led by its deputy director-general (Northern Region) Gyaneshwar Singh, will also probe allegations of corruption levelled by Prabhakar Sail; the investigation started a day prior through an affidavit.

Sameer Wankhede himself was questioned for about four hours on Wednesday as part of the investigation and he put forward “many facts before the team”. An NCB team from Delhi is also set to question two officers of NCB Mumbai today, along with conducting additional questioning of Wankhede.

“If necessary, more evidence and documents will be sought from him,” said Gyaneshwar Singh. “He submitted case-related documents that were sought. If needed, he will be questioned further. He will remain the investigating officer in the drugs-on-cruise ship case until substantial information is found against him.”