Sushant case: Narcotics Control Bureau arrests late actor's personal staff member
Mumbai: The Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) on Saturday arrested Dipesh Sawant, a member of Sushant Singh Rajput's personal staff, in connection with a drugs probe linked to the actor's death, officials said.
The NCB said with the latest action, the total number of arrested in this "ongoing investigation" has risen to seven.
They said Sawant, who was being interrogated since 10 PM last night, has been arrested under sections of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act around 8 PM on Saturday.
"He was subjected to interrogation and confrontation with Showik Chakraborty, Samuel Miranda, Zaid Vilatra and Kaizan Ibrahim.
"His statement was recorded under section 67 of the NDPS Act and on the basis of enough corroborative evidence, he (Sawant) has been placed under arrest," a senior NCB officer said.
He will be produced before the local Esplanade court at 11 AM on Sunday, he said.
A senior NCB officer had earlier said Sawant's role was that of a "witness" in the case.
The federal anti-narcotics agency had on Friday arrested Showik Chakraborty (24), the brother of main accused in this case Rhea Chakraborty, and Samuel Miranda, Rajput's house manager.
Three of the seven arrested, Showik, Miranda and Vilatra (21), are in NCB custody, the agency said.
When the probe in the case began, the agency had arrested two men, Abbas Lakhani and Karan Arora, for alleged drug peddling and officials have claimed that through them they reached Vilatra and Abdel Basit Parihar who are allegedly directly linked to this drugs case as they were in touch with Miranda.
Miranda, they had said, used to allegedly procure drugs from them on the purported instructions of Showik, agency officials said.
Officials have said Rhea (28), Rajput's live-in partner, is expected to be summoned for questioning soon.
This case has given the NCB an "inkling" into the narcotics network and its penetration in Bollywood or Hindi movie industry, NCB Deputy Director General Mutha Ashok Jain told reporters outside the agency's office on Saturday.
Various angles surrounding the death of the 34-year-old actor are being probed by three federal agencies, including the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
The NCB is probing the drug angle in this case under criminal sections of the NDPS Act after the ED shared with it a report following the cloning of two mobile phones of Rhea.
Rajput was found dead at his flat in suburban Bandra area on June 14.
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NEET-UG: 2 more held, role of several NTA officers under scanner; CBI focussing on source of leak
New Delhi (PTI): The CBI has arrested two more persons in connection with the NEET (UG) paper-leak case, with the role of several officers of the National Testing Agency (NTA) and other organisations, who had access to the printing press where the papers were printed, coming under the scanner, officials said on Thursday.
The agency has arrested Dhananjay Lokhanda from Ahilyanagar and Manisha Waghmare from Pune and conducted searches at 14 locations across the country in the last 24 hours, they said.
The CBI is focussing on identifying the source of the leak that has caused massive disappointment to lakhs of aspirants eyeing a seat in undergraduate medical courses, which are allotted after the highly-competitive examination, the officials said.
According to the CBI probe so far, the involvement of public servants in the leak cannot be ruled out.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has arrested three individuals from Jaipur -- Mangilal Biwal, Vikas Biwal and Dinesh Biwal -- along with Yash Yadav from Gurugram and Shubham Khairnar from Nashik.
Khairnar was in touch with Yadav and informed him in April that Mangilal Biwal was ready to pay Rs 10-12 lakh for arranging leaked NEET (UG) 2026 questions for his younger son.
Khairnar allegedly provided 500 to 600 questions from the leaked paper to Yadav, the officials said, adding that the questions could have helped score enough marks to get a seat in a reputed medical college.
Mangilal Biwal allegedly procured the paper from Yadav, who was known to his elder son Vikas Biwal from an NEET coaching in Rajasthan's Sikar. The deal between Mangilal Biwal and Yadav was for Rs 10 lakh, if 150 questions from the question bank matched with those in the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) paper, the officials said.
Mangilal Biwal shared the paper with his son and further distributed it among relatives.
Yadav also told Vikas Biwal to find additional candidates for the questions to recover some of the money that he had spent on getting those, the officials said.
An analysis of digital devices has given the agency incriminating chats, leaked question papers and other digital evidence. The CBI will subject the devices to a forensic examination to get the deleted data, the officials said.
The federal agency has registered an FIR and formed teams to probe the alleged NEET (UG) paper leak that resulted in the cancellation of the exam held on May 3.
The NEET (UG) 2026 was conducted across 551 Indian cities and at 14 overseas centres. Nearly 23 lakh candidates had registered for the test, which was administered by the NTA at centres across the country.
According to the NTA, information regarding alleged malpractice was received on the evening of May 7, four days after the examination was held. The NTA said the inputs were escalated to central agencies the following morning for "independent verification and necessary action".
The Rajasthan Police's Special Operations Group (SOG) has claimed that a "guess paper" for chemistry, allegedly circulated among students ahead of the examination, had approximately 410 questions, including roughly 120 that appeared in the test.
