29-07-2025
Pune top cop Amitesh Kumar defends drug party raid that led to arrest of Eknath Khadse's son-in-law: ‘No reason to have doubts'
Pune Police Commissioner Amitesh Kumar said on Tuesday that the raid on the alleged drug party in which former Maharashtra minister Eknath Khadse's son-in-law Dr Pranjal Khewalkar was arrested was done transparently and fairly.
'Media has been briefed in detail earlier about the action taken by us. I want to assure the public that the action is being done in a transparent, legal and fair manner. There is no reason for anyone to have doubts about the police action,' Amitesh Kumar said while responding to reporters' query about allegations levelled by Eknath Khadse and his daughter Rohini Khadse about the police action.
When asked about the purported images of the action, the police officer said, 'No photo or video of the raid has been leaked by the police.'
The police arrested Khewalkar along with four other men and two women during a raid at apartment number 102 of the Staybird Azure Suite building in Kharadi around 3.20 am on July 27. They claimed to have seized 2.7 g of a substance suspected to be cocaine, 70 g of a substance suspected to be marijuana, 10 mobile phones, two cars, a hookah pot, and liquor and beer bottles–together worth Rs 41,35,400–during the raid.
The police said they were investigating who had supplied the drugs to the accused people at the apartment in Kharadi.
A court remanded the seven accused in police custody till Tuesday for further investigation. They are expected to be produced before the court on Tuesday.
Khewalkar's lawyer, Vijaysinh Thombre, claimed in the court that the police had planted the contraband seized in this case for 'political reasons'. He argued that drugs had neither been consumed by Khewalkar nor recovered from his possession and that the charges against him under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act were therefore false.
Rohini Khadse is the state women's wing chief of the Opposition NCP (SP).
