Rhea Chakraborty, arrested in drugs case, shifted to Mumbai’s Byculla jail by NCB

After spending the night at the NCB office, actress Rhea Chakraborty, who was arrested on Tuesday in a drugs case linked to Sushant Singh Rajput’s death, was taken to Byculla jail on Wednesday.

After three days of interrogation, the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) on Tuesday arrested Rhea Chakraborty in a drugs case, following which she was sent in judicial custody till September 22 by a local court.

The court rejected Chakraborty’s bail application. The NCB told the court that she was an “active member” of a drugs syndicate and procured drugs for Rajput, her boyfriend.

The NCB, however, said it did not want her custody as it had already questioned her for three days.

Her lawyer Satish Maneshinde said they will approach sessions court for bail.

After producing her before the additional chief judicial magistrate through video link, the NCB told the court that she was confronted with all other accused including her brother Showik during her interrogation and facts in their statements were verified.

Rhea disclosed her involvement in procurement of drugs for Rajput and related financial transactions and also her instructions to co-accused Sammuel Miranda, Dipesh Sawant and Showik Chakraborty, it claimed.

“Therefore, it is clear from her statement that Rhea is an active member of the drugs syndicate connected with drug supplies,” the agency said.

The sections of the NDPS (Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances) Act invoked against her include 8(c) (sale, possession or manufacture of banned drugs) and 20 (b) (ii) (possession or use of small quantity of banned drugs), as per her lawyers.

After the arrest, the 28-year-old Rhea was taken for medical tests including COVID-19 test to the civic-run Sion hospital in Central Mumbai. Before leaving for hospital in a vehicle with NCB officials, the actor, clad in black, waved at media persons.

At the hospital, her antigen test for COVID-19 came out negative, officials said.

She was then taken to the NCB office in south Mumbai around 7.15 pm, to be produced before the court through video-conference.

Speaking to media persons, Mutha Ashok Jain, NCB Deputy Director General, South West region, said the central agency had enough evidence to arrest her.

But no contraband was recovered from her and the NCB doesn’t need her custody for interrogation, he said.

Earlier the NCB had arrested her brother Showik Chakraborty, Sushant Singh Rajput’s manager Samuel Miranda and domestic help Dipesh Sawant in the case.

In the morning, when Rhea reached the NCB office at Ballard Estate in South Mumbai around 10.30 for questioning, she was seen carrying a bag.

In her TV interviews, she has maintained that she never took drugs.

Her lawyer Satish Maneshinde called her arrest a “complete travesty of justice.

Rajput, who allegedly hanged himself at his Bandra residence here on June 14, had been treated by five leading psychiatrists in the city, Maneshinde claimed.

Rhea was recently interrogated by a CBI probe team as she is the main accused in the abetment of suicide case filed by Rajput’s father, and also questioned by the Enforcement Directorate in a money laundering case. She has denied all the allegations many times.