Ever since Rhea Chakraborty has been taken behind the bars by the NCB in connection with procuring drugs, there has been a conversation about the legality of her custody.
Does her crime warrant a non-bailable custody? Are the evidences even strong enough for the case to have become so big?
BV Kumar, former head of the NCB and one of the biggest experts on narcotics investigation in the country, gave answers to these questions in a conversation with Faye D’Souza.
Starting with Rhea, the main accused in the case, he said that there is no direct link between her and the person selling the drugs.
Which means that she procured drugs for Sushant through a channel which includes her brother Showik, Sushant’s manager and other accused like the peddler, and ultimately the person who was the source of supplying the drugs.
He added that Rhea and Sushant both paid for the drugs. Which means that here, too, she wasn’t the only person involved.
Now, as we already know, no drugs have been seized from Rhea or her brother. So, this entire case is based on statements received during the investigation. Which, according to BV Kumar, cannot be treated as a strong evidence.
No drugs have been seized from her and it’s entirely based upon the statement that has been recorded either from her, her brother or the drug suppliers. All of them are co-accused in this case and the evidence given by the co-accused is very weak…the evidential value is questionable.
Moving on, if you have been following the case, you must have heard the word ‘syndicate’ being thrown around. BV Kumar cleared the air on the same and said that the word cannot be used in association with Rhea.
Syndicate is a word which would be used by the investigating agencies for an organisation, which has a huge amount of network, where there is a big amount of procurement from the source, manufacture, storing, transporting, then to the peddlers and then left off to retailers..To call Rhea a ‘member of a syndicate’ is an exaggeration.
When asked by Faye if he would call this a ‘weak’ case, he said that he would not want to use that word. However, he did feel that NCB could have taken the more important route of reaching the source or the main supplier of drugs using the statements of those accused in this case.
Instead of concentrating on the addicts, they should have concentrated on the main offenders. That would have been an achievement.
On being questioned about the NCB making the information public for the media channels to run it, he said that it is not the wisest thing to do because then the people who are actually a part of a syndicate (he used the word ‘source’) get alarmed.
Keeping everything in mind, he said that Rhea should have been given bail and that there is ‘no justification to hold her in custody’. There are many insights on the matter, straight from the expert, and you can listen to them here:
