Who trusts NCB anymore?
The NCB has confiscated over 97 kgs of heroin and other drugs from a house in Delhi’s Shaheen Bagh. Calling it as one of their biggest hauls this year, Officials, on Thursday, said they busted an international heroin racket as the seized ones originate from Afghanistan and were being smuggled with aid of Pakistani smugglers.
Insight Bureau: The NCB in India has been actively focusing more on Bollywood these days and it comes after the untimely demise of the Indian actor Sushant Singh Rajput in June 14, 2020 which led the agency to launch a series of probe into the alleged drug use in the film industry.
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The NCB has confiscated over 97 kgs of heroin and other drugs from a house in Delhi’s Shaheen Bagh. Calling it as one of their biggest hauls this year, Officials, on Thursday, said they busted an international heroin racket as the seized ones originate from Afghanistan and were being smuggled with aid of Pakistani smugglers.
The Narcotics Control Bureau, abbreviated as NCB, is an Indian central law enforcement and intelligence agency under the Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India. The bureau is tasked with combating drug trafficking and the use of illegal substances under NDPS – Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act.
The NCB is recently seen questioning several top celebrities of the film industry in connection with their involvement in a drug cartel.
Despite the fame, fortune and high-life typical of a celebrity, many well-known stars and public figures suffer from substance abuse and alcoholism. Big-name Bollywood actors and icons are known to have fought their own addiction struggles in the past.
Soon enough, a year and 4 months after SSR’s unfortunate end, Aryan Khan, son of Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan, was arrested on October 3, 2021 in connection with a drug-raid conducted by the Narcotics Control Bureau. This lead to the commencement of another filmy saga that resulted in Aryan Khan cooling his heels at Mumbai’s Arthur Road Jail for 22 days.
As per the arrest memo, he was placed under arrest for “involvement in consumption, sale and purchase” of contraband. Although no drugs were recovered from him individually, NCB argued that the ones recovered from Aryan’s friend, Arbaaz Merchant, were for both of them. And it was through WhatsApp chats that the agency concluded Aryan’s involvement in ‘international drug trafficking’.
NCB has been increasingly employing private WhatsApp chats of alleged drug consumers and claiming them as means of tracking down narcotics trafficking. The alleged drug bust of Bollywood actor Rhea Chakraborty in her connection to SSR’s death bears similarities to Aryan Khan’s case as it was the chats on their mobile phones that had led the NCB to conclude their links with drug trafficking.
With limited resources, staff and information up their sleeves, NCB is incompetent to deal with such heavily connected cases where celebrities have joined forces with political protection nexus drug syndicates.
Not to mention, as much as 16 officials of the Narcotics Control Bureau, an agency tasked with combating drug trafficking, are themselves facing corruption charges. This was revealed by the NCB in response to a Right to Information (RTI) query submitted by India Today.
Can an agency, which is short staffed and solely relying on WhatsApp chats to uncover illegal drug trafficking information from alleged consumers with officials themselves facing charges for corruption, be trusted by the people to provide just results?
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