Mumbai: Bhushan Patil, associate get 5-day police custody

Bhushan Patil was seen hiding his face from cameras while being transported by Sakinaka police

The Andheri court has granted police custody of five days to Lalit Patil's brother Bhushan and his associate Abhishek Balkwade in the Nashik drug syndicate case. "We are yet to interrogate Amir Shaikh, Harish Pant, Abhishek Balkwade and Bhushan Patil face to face," said the police in court while seeking custody of the duo.

According to the police, Bhushan and his associate Abhishek Balkwade acted as per Patil's instructions. They operated a Rs 300 crore drug syndicate in Nashik on the drug lord's instructions. "Bhushan had convinced Kamble to lease land for a pesticide company. However a drug-manufacturing unit was started instead, using Kamble's forged documents," said a police source.

"So far, we have arrested 18 people involved in this racket as they were involved in the supply chain of MD drugs. Two accused used to meet at Kalyan Shilphata and distributed drugs according to the orders," the source added.

The police have yet to identify the financial transactions between all the alleged accused. "We want to investigate the financial transactions between the accused and investigate whether they established a different drug syndicate elsewhere," the police said in court.

Rubbishing the claims, Advocate Swapnil Wagh who represented both the accused argued, "Nashik's racket was busted and everything was recovered from the site. The police have to seize nothing from my clients… they can be granted judicial custody." However, the Andheri court sent the duo to police custody for five days.

18
No of arrests made in the case so far