The arrest came after three hours of sustained interrogation by a Delhi police team at the intensive care unit of the Apollo hospital.
NEW DELHI: After four days of high drama, Rahul Mahajan, son of the late BJP leader Pramod Mahajan, was arrested by police on Monday evening under the stringent Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act.
The arrest came after three hours of sustained interrogation by a police team at the intensive care unit of the Apollo hospital, where Mahajan is recuperating after a drug and alcohol binge on Thursday night.
“We have prima facie evidence against Rahul Mahajan under various sections of the act,” said Additional DCP (New Delhi) Manish Aggrawal. Police have asked doctors when Mahajan will be discharged so that he can be formally arrested.
Mahajan has been charged under sections 21 (sale and purchase of drugs), 25 (allowing one’s premises for the use of drugs), 27 (consumption of drugs), and 29 (conspiracy and abetment) of the NDPS Act. Section 21 can land him in jail for a minimum of 10 years.
The interrogation of Sahil Zaroo, Trishay Khanna, Karan Ahuja, and Rahul Malhotra — the four ‘friends’ who were with Mahajan and Vivek Moitra on Thursday night — on Monday armed police with evidence of Mahajan’s consumption of drugs.
All four not only agreed that Mahajan had consumed drugs but also revealed that it was he who asked them to fetch cocaine.
The Central Forensic Science Laboratory, which was asked to examine the white powder found at Mahajan’s house, said in its report on Monday that the material is heroin.
Police confronted Mahajan with all this evidence at Apollo hospital in the afternoon. A source said Mahajan could not refute any of the charges.
But Mahajan’s advocate said his client proclaimed his innocence and denied all charges against him. The advocate said Mahajan told police that the four men who had come to his house that night were known to Moitra and not him. The advocate accused police of acting under media pressure.
Meanwhile, Majid Memon, Zaroo’s lawyer, retracted his client’s earlier statement admitting to having taken drugs at Mahajan’s house. “Sahil never took any drugs. Neither did he attempt to run away from Delhi. He went to Srinagar on Friday (the day after the binge) as he had booked his ticket earlier,” Memon said.
Police also arrested three Nigerians, Abdullah, David and Taibu, on Monday for supplying drugs to Zaroo. All three were produced before court which remanded them in 10 days’ custody.
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