Malik claims Sameer Wankhede forged birth certificate; NCB official slams min

Mumbai: Maharashtra NCP minister Nawab Malik on Monday claimed that Narcotics Control Bureau's zonal director Sameer Wankhede used forged documents including his birth certificate.

Malik tweeted a photo of the purported certificate, saying Sameer DawoodWankhedekayahan se shuruhuafurjiwada. (Sameer DawoodWankhede's document forging started from here). Wankhede, an IRS officer of the 2008 batch, slammed the minister, saying his action was defamatory in nature and an invasion of his family's privacy. The NCB official said he was pained by the nature of personal defamatory and slanderous attacks by the minister without any justification.

The series of acts of the minister over the past few days have put me and my family under tremendous mental and emotional pressure, Wankhede said in a statement.

An NCB team led by Wankhede earlier this month allegedly seized drugs onboard a cruise ship off the Mumbai coast following which Aryan Khan, the son of Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan, was arrested on October 3. Malik has repeatedly termed the cruise drugs bust case as "fake".

On Monday, the document posted by Malik on Twitter mentioned the name of the NCB official's father as Dawood. Wankhede said his father's name is Dnyandev, who was an excise official. Malik has been targeting Wankhede after his son-in-law Sameer Khan was arrested in an alleged drug case. The minister had claimed that NCB officials booked Sameer Khan under wrong charges and no banned drug was found in his possession.

Malik, who is also the NCP spokesperson, recently claimed that his government will soon put Wankhede behind the bars. On Monday, talking to a news channel in Nanded, Malik claimed that Wankhede is a Muslim by birth. "In the past 15 days, whenever I spoke on various subjects like the Maldives tour (of Wankhede), I didn't get any answers and they were termed as political allegations. But, now the truth has come out," he said.

Malik stated that earlier the BJP had said his son-in-law and Aryan Khan are Muslims. Later, the BJP's "troll army" tried to create an environment, making it a Hindu-Muslim issue via Wankhede, he alleged.

"NCB zonal director Wankhede's name is 'Sameer DawoodWankhede', and he is a Muslim by birth. I have published his birth certificate (online). I had to make an effort to find it...he got the IRS job on bogus certificate...I shall reveal more such acts of his 'bogusgiri'," he said. Malik also alleged that by "hiding" his religion, he (Wankhede) obtained fake documents and through this, the right of a backward class candidate was snatched. Notably, Union minister RamdasAthawale on Sunday came out in support of Wankhede and said targeting a Dalit officer who is doing good work is not right.

Terming Malik's allegations against Wankhede as "baseless" and "mischievous", Athawale had defended the officer, saying he has not done anything wrong. Athawale had also accused Malik of trying to give a religious and casteist colour while targeting Wankhede.