Aryan Khan asked "soul-searching queries": NCB lead officer

New Delhi: senior Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) officer Sanjay Singh, who headed the probe against Aryan Khan, who was accused earlier in the drugs-on-cruise-case, told India Today magazine that the Khan asked him some "soul-searching queries". The officer added that he did not except such questions from him, NDTV reports.

Singh said that he told Aryan Khan, son of the Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan, that he came to meet him with an open mind, but the Khan junior replied with the question, "Sir, you have painted me as an international drug trafficker, that I finance drug trafficking - aren't these charges absurd?", NDTV quoted.

The 24-year-old youth told the officer that police did not find drugs on his person during the bust, but they arrested him. "Sir, you have done me great wrong and ruined my reputation. Why did I have to spend so many weeks in jail - did I really deserve it?" Aryan Khan was quoted by NDTV.

Later, Aryan's father, Shah Rukh Khan, had told the officer that he was concerned about his son's mental health. Aryan is not sleeping well, and he was giving him company through the night. Aryan was "vilified" even after zero substantial evidence against him, Shah Rukh Khan said, according to the magazine report.

Further, the magazine quoted Shah Rukh Khan, "We have been painted as some kind of big criminals or monsters who are out to destroy society, and we find it going to work tough every day," to Sanjay Singh.

Aryan Khan was cleared of charges because of a lack of evidence eight months after his arrest by the Narcotics Control Bureau. He was put in jail for nearly a month after his arrest too. He was arrested on a cruise ship off the coast of Mumbai.

The probe against Aryan Khan itself was controversial after it was found that the chief investigation officer of NCB, Sameer Wankhede tried to implicate Khan out of motivation.