My kids lost friends, we were labelled drug traffickers: Nilofer Malik on Sameer Khan's arrest

Nawab Malik. File Pic

Nilofer Malik Khan, daughter of Maharashtra Cabinet Minister Nawab Malik, posted an open letter on Twitter on Saturday talking about the "mental trauma" she went through after her husband Sameer Khan was arrested by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) in an alleged false case.

"A small glimpse of the torture we went through. Over the next few days I will post more about the unjust and unlawful manner in which we were treated. It's time we speak up as a society against a system that cripples us, when its job is to help us," she posted on the micro-blogging site.

"It was January 12 when my husband Sameer Khan received a call from his mother stating that he had been summoned by the NCB to their office the next day. He was questioned from 9am to 12am while I kept waiting at home without any clarity. In an emotional state, I smashed my hand into the window pane causing it to fall on my foot due to which I had to get 250 stitches on my leg. Those 15 hours were nerve-wracking for me and my kids," she wrote in the letter.

Expressing how their family was "ostracized", Nilofer said that they were labeled as "peddlers" and "drug traffickers".

"We were ostracized by society, the media ran a vicious and biased trial against us where we were declared criminals without knowing our side of the story. My kids have been put through an ordeal no one should go through. They lost their friends, people were wary of even speaking to us. We were shunned overnight. Terms like 'peddlers', 'peddler's wife' and 'drug traffickers' were thrown at us," she wrote in the letter.

Nilofer also said that Sameer was arrested "without NCB having any concrete proof" and was "detained for months".

Also Read: No evidence against Nawab Malik's son-in-law in drugs case: Court

"The following morning I got a call from our security guard that there were NCB officers at our door and they wanted to search our house and office. This was at 7.30 am. By the time I got there, they had already barged into our office since the guard had a spare key. After tossing our belongings around and thoroughly checking both the places they found nothing. Despite all the proof that we had, Sameer was detained for months," reads the letter.

Sameer was arrested by the NCB in a case of seizing 200 kg drugs from a British National Karan Sajnani. The contraband, however, tested negative in an FSL report. Malik said that he had earlier claimed that it was herbal tobacco but the agency framed his son-in-law as he was speaking against NCB's raids.

A special NDPS court had later granted bail to Sameer, after he had spent over 8 months in jail.