INDIA. Mumbai: TV actress and comedian Bharti Singh and her screenwriter husband Haarsh Limbachiyaa were arrested on charges of drug possession sine. Cannabis was found in their residence. The couple was arrested in their residence at Oberoi Towers at Andheri in North-West Mumbai by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) on Saturday. They have been remanded to judicial custody until 5 Dec. on Sunday. The TV industry couple has applied for bail, and the hearing will be held on Monday.
The Magistrate at Esplanade Court in South Mumbai also sent two drug peddlers to police custody for a period of five days.
21-year-old drug trafficker also arrested
During the raid, 86.5 grams of ganja (marijuana) was recovered from Singh’s house. Both Singh and Limbachiyaa admitted to have been using marijuana. While Singh has been arrested, as per the provisions of the Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act 1986, the examination of Limbachiyaa is underway, NCB’s Zonal Director Sameer Wankhede said in a statement.
“On Saturday, NCB conducted a raid in Khar Danda area in North West Mumbai and nabbed a trafficker aged 21 years with various drugs including 15 blots of LSD (commercial quantity), marijuana (40 gm) and Nitrazepam (psychotropic medicines). In follow-up and corroboration with previous inputs, NCB raided the production office and the residence of Bharti Singh. Furthermore, in a follow-up of MD seizure in Crime No. 33/2020, the NCB team also apprehended two other absconders,” Wankhede added.
Raid part of Bollywood drug probe
Singh and Limbachiyaa were interrogated for nearly three hours at NCB headquarters at Ballard Estate in South Mumbai. Later, they were sent for a medical examination per protocol. The search was conducted as part of the ongoing probe by the NCB into alleged drug use in the entertainment industry.
The NCB launched an investigation into the consumption and possession of drugs by those in the Hindi film industry after it received official communication from the Enforcement Directorate (ED), in which there were various chats related to drug consumption, procurement, usage, and transportation in connection with actor Sushant Singh Rajput’s death. Rhea Chakraborty, Rajput’s girlfriend, was arrested on 9 Sep. 2020 and subsequently released on bail by the NCB after spending nearly a month in jail on charges of procuring drugs for him.
Singh has appeared in many comedy and reality shows on TV. She has also hosted a few of those shows. This is the latest drug-related case in a series of raids conducted at residences of big names associated with Bollywood. Actor Arjun Rampal and film producer Firoz Nadiadwala were also raided by the agency earlier this month in connection to a drug probe.
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