NCB summons SP leader Abu Azmi's nephew Aslam yet again in connection with drugs case

The Mumbai branch of Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) has summoned Samajwadi Party leader Abu Azmi's nephew Aslam Azmi to appear before the agency for questioning on Friday. Azmi has been summoned in connection with a drugs case related to peddler Sufran Lakdawala. Last week, he was summoned by the Goa unit of NCB in connection with the drugs matter. 

Abu Aslam Azmi's name cropped up during the interrogation of Lakdawala who was arrested on July 8, the NCB said. 

"In Sufran Lakdawala drugs case, Goa NCB team has summoned a person named Abu Aslam Azmi for questioning today. Abu Aslam Azmi is close to a big leader of the Samajwadi Party. On July 8, Lakdawala was arrested from Mira Road with cocaine drugs," the agency said in a statement last week.

Lakdawala is said to have supplied drugs to major industrialists and people connected to the film industry in Mumbai. "Aslam Azmi's name cropped up during the interrogation of Sufran Lakdawala, after which he was called for questioning at NCB's Goa office today," it said.

In 2017, Abu Aslam Azmi was arrested by the Delhi Special Cell for alleged involvement in the smuggling of narcotic substances. 

NCB's crackdown on drug peddling in Mumbai

Earlier this month, the NCB arrested a criminal wanted in connection to the case of a drugs factory busted in the Dongri area of south Mumbai earlier this year, an NCB official said. A team of the NCB apprehended the absconding accused, Jaman Hidaytullah Khan alias Sonu Pathan, in the Pydhonie area here in the early hours of Monday and later took him into custody.

The factory manufacturing banned drugs was unearthed by the NCB in January earlier this year. The agency subsequently issued summons to Pathan a number of times to join the probe into the case, but he did not respond. Based on an input that Pathan would arrive to meet an associate, the NCB conducted surveillance in the area and nabbed him, the official said.

Earlier, the agency had arrested Chinku Pathan alias Parvez Khan, an associate of fugitive underworld don Dawood Ibrahim and a relative of late mafia don Karim Lala, and Arif Bhujwala in connection with the case.