Byju's puts a break on ads featuring Shah Rukh Khan amid Aryan Khan's arrest: Reports

Ed-tech decacorn Byju's has reportedly paused advertisements featuring Shah Rukh Khan, days after his son Aryan Khan was arrested in the Mumbai cruise drug bust case, according to multiple reports. The decision was purportedly a result of backlash on social media platforms for featuring Shah Rukh Khan post-NCB's action in the Cordelia cruise case.

Since Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) arrested Aryan Khan on October 2, the netizens, especially on Twitter, have been questioning Byju's for its association with the Bollywood actor.

On its official Twitter handle, Byju's doesn't have any post featuring Shah Rukh Khan. The ed-tech firm's last tweet was on October 2, the day when NCB conducted raids. However, on Youtube, the actor features in the cover picture. 

Shah Rukh Khan has been the brand ambassador of Byju's since 2017. He is also the face of other leading brands like LG, Dubai Tourism and Hyundai. He has over 42 million followers on Twitter, with his last tweet being a promotional one about Disney+ Hotstar.

Earlier this week, Byju's raised over Rs 2,200 crore in the latest funding round. With this, the Bangalore-headquartered company became India's most valuable unicorn with a $18 billion valuation, surpassing Paytm's $16 billion.

The ed-tech major is on an acquisition spree with some of its largest acquisitions include Osmo, Epic, Aakash, Tynker and Great Learning.

Aryan Khan, others arrested in Cordelia drug bust case

The NCB on October 2 busted a high-profile drug party on a Goa-bound cruise from Mumbai. The central agency recovered drugs such as Hashish, Cocaine, MDMA, and eight people including Aryan Khan were detained. After a 15-hour interrogation, the detainees were put under arrest. They were later remanded to NCB custody till October 7. On grounds of details gained during the interrogations, several arrests have been made, including organisers and drug peddlers. Currently, Aryan Khan and seven others have been sent to judicial custody for 14 days.

According to the NCB's panchnama, Aryan Khan & co-accused Arbaaz Merchant admitted they wanted to consume charas that the latter brought to the cruise. The panchname states that Merchant voluntarily handed over the drug to investigating officer who was searching him while admitting that Aryan and he were going to consume it. "On asking, Aryan Shahrukh Khan admit he also consume charas and the charas was meant for a smoke during the cruise journey (sic)," the panchnama added.