PANAJI: A Mumbai court sent the 23-year-old son of Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan to three days’ custody on Monday, a lawyer said, after he was arrested in a drugs investigation that has captivated India’s broadcast media.
Aryan Khan was arrested on Saturday night after police raided a ship off Mumbai and found narcotics, local media said. The court remanded Khan and two others in custody with the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), the federal agency that is investigating the case.
A spokesperson for Shah Rukh Khan did not respond to requests for comment. Calls to the NCB went unanswered outside regular business hours.
“They have been accused of consumption, but there is no evidence for the same,” Advait Tamhankar, a lawyer who appeared for one of the other two accused, told reporters outside the courtroom.
Television cameras showed a gaggle of reporters and police around Aryan Khan as he was ushered into a vehicle at the end of the hearing. He is scheduled to go before the court again on Oct. 7.
Many high-profile Indian actors and TV personalities have been under scrutiny from narcotics officials since last year. In September 2020, several top female actors were questioned by the NCB, though it was unclear how the investigation progressed.
Some Bollywood personalities have defended Aryan Khan and criticized the media glare around his arrest.
“The slightest misdemeanor risks being wildly exaggerated,” film producer Pritish Nandy said on Twitter on Sunday. “Kids make mistakes. Punish him, by all means, if the tests confirm his guilt. But let’s not crucify him in the media.”
Son of Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan in custody in high-profile drugs probe
https://arab.news/gnx3e
Son of Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan in custody in high-profile drugs probe
- 23-year-old Aryan Khan was arrested in a drugs investigation that has captivated India’s broadcast media
- The arrest came Saturday night after police raided a ship off Mumbai and found narcotics, local media said
Over 1,400 Indonesians left Cambodian scam groups in five days: embassy
- Scammers working from hubs across Southeast Asia lure Internet users globally into fake romances and cryptocurrency investments
- Some foreign nationals have evacuated suspected scam compounds across Cambodia this month
PHNOM PENH: More than 1,400 Indonesians have left cyberscam networks in Cambodia in the last five days, Jakarta said on Wednesday, after Phnom Penh pledged a fresh crackdown on the illicit trade.
Scammers working from hubs across Southeast Asia, some willingly and others trafficked, lure Internet users globally into fake romances and cryptocurrency investments, netting tens of billions of dollars each year.
Some foreign nationals have evacuated suspected scam compounds across Cambodia this month as the government pledged to “eliminate” problems related to the online fraud industry, which the United Nations says employs at least 100,000 people in Cambodia alone.
Between January 16-20, 1,440 Indonesians left sites operated by online scam syndicates around Cambodia and went to the Indonesian embassy in Phnom Penh for help, the mission said in a statement.
The “largest wave of arrivals” occurred on Monday when 520 Indonesians came to the embassy, it said.
Recent Cambodian law enforcement measures against scam operators meant more citizens would likely continue showing up at the embassy, it added.
“The main problem for them is that they do not possess passports and they are staying in Cambodia without valid immigration permits,” according to the embassy.
It urged Indonesians leaving scam sites to report to the embassy, which could assist them with securing travel documents and overstay fine waivers in order to return home.
Indonesia said this week that its embassy in Phnom Penh handled more than 5,000 consular service cases for citizens in Cambodia last year — more than 80 percent of which were related to Indonesians who “admitted to being involved with online scam syndicates.”
Cambodia arrested and deported Chinese-born tycoon Chen Zhi, accused of running Internet scam operations from Cambodia, to China this month.
Chen, a former adviser to Cambodia’s leaders, was indicted by US authorities in October.
Analysts say Chen’s extradition has left some of those running Internet scams from Cambodia fearing legal consequences — after the criminal enterprises ballooned for years — with some operators opting to release people or evacuate their compounds.
