Mumbai court sends actor Armaan Kohli to 14-day judicial custody

A Mumbai court on Wednesday sent Bollywood actor Armaan Kohli, arrested in a drugs case, to 14-day judicial remand at the end of his NCB custody.

Kohli, soon after being remanded to judicial custody, moved a bail plea before the court. The actor was placed under arrest on August 28 after being questioned by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) following the recovery of drugs from his house in suburban Juhu. He was produced before the court at the end of his NCB custody on Wednesday.

The court sent the 49-year-old actor to jail under judicial custody as no further remand was sought by the apex drug law enforcement agency. Earlier, the NCB had told the court it had seized more than one gram of cocaine from the actor’s house during a raid. 

The central agency had told the court that there was evidence to suggest Kohli, booked under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, was associated with an international drug syndicate.

An alleged drug peddler, Ajay Raju Singh, who was arrested by the NCB along with the actor and booked under the NDPS Act, too, was sent to 14-day judicial custody by the court.

Kohli has featured in the Salman Khan-starter “Prem Ratan Dhan Payo”, among other Hindi, films and was also one of the contestants of TV reality show ‘Bigg Boss’. 

The action against Kohli followed the arrest of TV actor Gaurav Dixit by the central anti-drugs agency the day before in Mumbai. Dixit was arrested by the Mumbai zonal team of the NCB, and produced before a magistrate court, which remanded him to the probe agency’s custody till August 30.

The NCB had been on the lookout for the actor for the past few months after his name cropped up in the interrogation of actor Ajaz Khan and some other persons in April this year. The NCB, represented by special public prosecutor Advait Sethna, told the court that Khan in his voluntary statement revealed about Dixit’s role in the case.

(With Inputs from PTI)