Mumbai: A Twitter account, ‘swankhede_IRS’ posted a Tweet Monday that said: “I don’t harp on the negative because if you do, then there’s no progression. There’s no forward movement.”
Wankhede, a 2008-batch Indian Revenue Service (IRS) officer and the controversial investigating officer of last year’s alleged drug bust on a cruise ship in which actor Shah Rukh Khan’s son Aryan Khan was arrested, has had a number of fake accounts in his name.
So much so that when Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Nawab Malik was holding regular press conferences last year to poke holes in the investigation into the alleged drug bust and criticising Wankhede, many on Twitter were cheering or booing these fake accounts assuming that they belonged to Wankhede.
However, this Twitter handle in particular did belong to him, and the timing of the tweet raised questions about whether it was his reflection on the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) giving a clean chit to Khan in the chargesheet it filed in the Cordelia case last week citing lack of “sufficient evidence.”
Speaking to the press, NCB chief S.N. Pradhan said Aryan Khan’s WhatsApp chats about drugs had no physical corroboration and there were “shortcomings” in the initial investigation.
Wankhede confirmed to ThePrint that the Twitter account was indeed his.
“But the tweet has nothing to do with this [the chargesheet]. If you see, I keep posting motivational statements on Twitter almost on a daily basis,” he said.
Wankhede was on deputation to the NCB from September 2020 to December 2021 after which he returned to the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence.
Following allegations of wrongdoings, mainly by Malik, the NCB had removed Wankhede from the role of lead investigator in the alleged drugs bust case. The NCB also formed a Special Investigation Team to probe the case.
Also Read: No medical test to confirm drug use, no phone seizure memo — why Aryan Khan got NCB clean chit
’29 fake accounts’
Wankhede formally made his own Twitter account about a month ago, he said.
“There were at least 29 fake accounts in my name saying things like ‘main aaj raat yahan raid marne wala hun (I am going to conduct a raid on this address today)’,” Wankhede told ThePrint.
He said he had complained to Twitter and got all the fake accounts shut down, but that prompted him to join the website to prevent any more fake accounts in his name. His first tweet was on 1 May to mark Maharashtra Day and Labour Day.
His string of “motivational tweets” started on 24 May, and since then he has made at least four such tweets, including the one Monday.
Don't save your best for when you think the material calls for it. Always bring your full potential to every take, and be on top of your job, or they will replace you.#sameerwankhede
— Sameer Wankhede (@swankhede_IRS) May 24, 2022
(Edited by Uttara Ramaswamy)
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