Midnight drama in Lucknow over Gosavi's 'surrender'

Lucknow, Oct 26 (IANS) Lucknow witnessed high drama around midnight on Monday when Kiran Gosavi, the private detective from Mumbai who made headlines with his selfie with Shah Rukh Khan's son Aryan Khan after his arrest by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), announced that he would surrender at Mandiaon police station 'any moment.'

Kiran Gosavi, the Narcotics Control Bureau's 'independent witness' in the cruise ship drugs case, against whom a lookout notice is out, said he wanted to surrender before the Uttar Pradesh police as he felt 'threatened' in Maharashtra.

But the expected drama ended in anti-climax when Gosavi failed to turn up and Lucknow police commissioner DK Thakur said that Gosavi cannot surrender in the Lucknow 'because the Lucknow police station does not have the jurisdiction to take any action against him'.

An unverified audio clip circulated by sources close to Gosavi, indicated the policemen at a local station in Lucknow unceremoniously turned him down.

The clip was of a phone call where a man, purportedly Gosavi, is heard asking if it was the Madiaon police chowki. After confirming, he says "I want to come there. I am Kiran Gosavi. I want to surrender here.

"Why do you want to come here?" the policeman asks.

"This is the nearest police station for me at the moment," Gosavi says.

Once the policeman confirms that he indeed wanted to surrender, he says, "No, you can't surrender here. Try somewhere else."

As the audio clip went viral, huge crowds, mainly media, started collecting at the Mandiaon police station and security was beefed up.

A number of officers were seen waiting outside the building.

Senior officials did not rule out the possibility of Gosavi deliberately talking about surrendering in Lucknow to deflect the focus of the police in Maharashtra.

It was only around midnight that the crowds dispersed when the police confirmed that there would be no surrender.

In a telephonic conversation with some news channels, earlier on Monday evening, Gosavi had said that he wished to surrender in Lucknow as he felt 'threatened' in Mumbai.

A private investigator, Gosavi was present during the cruise ship raid and later at the NCB office with Aryan Khan. His selfie and videos with Aryan Khan at both places indicated that he had unlimited access to the son of Shah Rukh Khan.

This fueled questions from Maharashtra's ruling alliance about the anti-drugs agency's investigation. Several leaders questioned why an 'independent witness' of the agency should be present at the raid and its office and take selfies with the high-profile accused.

A day ago, a man claiming to be Gosavi's personal bodyguard made allegations of bribery against him.

Prabhakar Sail, who is another witness in the case, said he heard Gosavi having a telephonic conversation about pay-offs with one Sam D'Souza.

Sail claimed he heard Gosavi say they should ask for a 'bomb Rs 25 crore' and then settle at Rs 18 crore, of which Rs 8 crore is for the NCB's zonal officer in charge of the investigation, Sameer Wankhede.