Mumbai: In a twist to the cruise drug bust case of the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), a person claiming to be privy to pre-raid discussions has told the city police that actor Shah Rukh Khan’s son Aryan was framed by certain individuals to make money.

“I have reasons to believe that the raid was pre-planned and Aryan Khan was framed in the drug case. The entire strategy was finalised on September 27, while the cruise ship was raided on October 2,” Vijay Pagare told TOI on Saturday.

Pagare said the high-level police SIT team recorded his statement on November 3 and 4. “My statement was read out to me, and I signed it,” he said.

Pagare said he had been staying with Sunil Patil, who had claimed he had passed on information about drugs on the cruise to the NCB. Patil’s name had come up in the statement of businessman Sam D’Souza, who had said panch witness K P Gosavi had saved Patil’s name as SW —referring to NCB zonal chief Sameer Wankhede—to show he had direct access to NCB.

Gosavi had tried to extort money from Khan’s manager Pooja Dadlani on this pretext and the matter is under investigation by the police special investigation team (SIT). D’Souza, Gosavi and Dadlani had a meeting at Lower Parel a few hours after the raid where, it is alleged, payment to NCB officials was discussed.

D’Souza claimed that Rs 50 lakh was collected from Dadlani to prevent the arrest of Aryan Khan, but he subsequently returned it when he realised that Gosavi was a cheat.

Pagare said that Patil owed him money, and he had been staying with him for the last few months in an attempt to recover it. Patil was staying at a star hotel in Vashi on September 27 and another room in the same hotel was booked in the name of Gosavi.

At the hotel, another witness, BJP worker Manish Bhanushali, Gosavi and Patil met a few days before the raid, claimed Pagare. He said he was in the hotel room when Bhanushali kissed Patil and said, “Bada kaam ho gaya (the big work has been done). We have to leave for Ahmedabad but don’t take Pagare along.”

Pagare said that he was completely clueless about all that was happening at this stage.

On October 3, just a few hours after the raid, Bhanushali allegedly returned to the hotel room. He asked Pagare to come along with him to get his money. The two then went to the office of the NCB. On the way, Bhanushali was speaking to someone on the mobile phone and took names, including Pooja, Sam and Mayur. He allegedly said Gosavi’s phone is switched off and he suspected that he had absconded after getting money.

On reaching the NCB office, Pagare said he saw journalists there and was told Aryan Khan had been detained by the NCB.

Later, he saw a news clip about the cruise party raid and saw visuals of Bhanushali and Gosavi escorting the accused.

At this point, he said he realised the raid had been pre-planned.

According to Pagare, he tried reaching out to advocate Satish Maneshinde, who was representing Aryan Khan in court, to inform him of what he knew but was not entertained.