A key witness in the Mumbai cruise ship drugs case, involving the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) and Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan’s son Aryan Khan, claimed on Sunday that the star kid was implicated.

Pagare also alleged that he heard BJP worker Manish Bhanushali — another witness in the NCB’s raid on the luxurious cruise ship off Mumbai coast — talk about a ₹18-crore-deal to “settle” the Aryan Khan’s case, reports Hindustan Times.

Bhanushali was among the nine independent witnesses of the NCB, which also includes KP Gosavi, involved in the cruise ship raid which led to the arrest of Shah Rukh Khan’s son Aryan Khan along with others for allegedly possessing drugs.

Speaking to news agency ANI, Pagare claimed that Sunil Patil, one of the founding members of Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) who played a ‘key role’ in the Aryan Khan case, told Bhanushali last September about a “big game” that happened during a meeting at a hotel where he was also present.

“I had given money to Sunil Patil in 2018-19 for some work and for the past six months, I was following him to get that money back. This year in September, we were in a hotel room where Sunil Patil told Bhanushali that a big game has happened.” Vijay Pagare was quoted as telling ANI in an interview.

Elaborating further, Pagare claimed that Bhanushali met him on October 3 and asked him to accompany the BJP worker to get money. “While I was with him in the car, I heard them saying that a deal of ₹25 crore was scheduled but settled on ₹18 crore and ₹50 lakhs taken,” Pagare claimed in his interview.