An Indian court on Thursday transferred the son of Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan, Aryan Khan, 23, from police custody to judicial custody as it deferred by a day his plea hearing for interim bail in a drug case.
Mr Khan was arrested with seven other people on Sunday after an overnight raid by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) on a luxury cruise ship sailing from Mumbai to Goa, but has not been formally charged. Police said they found drugs including cocaine, hashish and ecstasy during the raid.
The court in Mumbai rejected the prosecution’s demand for further police custody of Mr Khan and remanded him to 14-day judicial custody before adjourning the bail hearing until Friday.
“Accused to be in NCB's custody till tomorrow,” the judge said in the order on Thursday evening, observing that Mumbai jails did not admit detainees without Covid-19 certificates.
On Monday, the court extended Mr Khan's police custody for three days after the NCB said it was necessary to establish his links with an international nexus of drug peddlers and suppliers.
Mr Khan denies charges that he consumed or possessed drugs or had links with drug traffickers, saying that he was invited aboard the luxury boat as a guest of one of the suspects. His judicial custody will be voided if the court grants him bail.
His father, Shah Rukh Khan, 55, is one of the biggest film stars in India and has largely avoided controversy in three decades of public life.
The actor has not made any public statement on his son’s arrest, and he did not attend the court hearings.
Mumbai's film industry, or Bollywood, was at the centre of a drug controversy last year after the death of the actor Sushant Singh Rajput, who allegedly committed suicide after a history of narcotics abuse.
