Actor Arjun Rampal cites ‘personal reasons’ for time till Dec 22 to appear before NCB

The NCB had questioned Rampal and his partner, Gabriella Demetriades, last month and arrested Gabriella’s brother Agisilaos in the case.

In November, the agency searched Rampal’s residence in Bandra and seized 11 gadgets, including laptop, mobile phones, pen drives and tablets. As some documents and banned pills were also recovered, Rampal was summoned and questioned on November 13 for nearly seven hours at the NCB office in Ballard Estate. Gabriella was questioned twice.

In mid-October, Agisilaos was arrested from Lonavala. The resort in which he was staying with his fiancee was raided and 0.8 gm charas was recovered from him. A special NDPS court granted bail to him on Tuesday. He was released while being directed to deposit his passport to the NCB and submit Rs 50,000 in cash. He was also asked not to leave the country without prior permission from the court.

Agisilaos was earlier granted bail in October, but he remained in jail since the NCB took him into custody again in another drugs case. According to the NCB, he is a part of a larger drug racket and supplied drugs to the peddler, who was in touch with actor Rhea Chakraborty, also Rajput’s girlfriend, and her brother Showik.

Along with Agisilaos, the special court also granted bail to former Dharma Productions employee Kshitij Prasad, who was also arrested in the same case. The NCB, which is probing the film industry’s link with drugs, has arrested 28 people in the case.