Sameer Wankhede Hits Back at Nawab Malik on Caste-Wedding Fracas After Being Questioned on ‘Fake Caste Certificate To Get Govt Job’

Mumbai, October 25: In another salvo, NCP Minister Nawab Malik raised doubts whether the Narcotics Control Bureau Zonal Director Sameer Wankhede had submitted a fake caste certificate to get a government job to which the latter hit back and vehemently denied the allegations, here on Monday.

The Nationalist Congress Party's National Spokesperson Malik tweeted a purported birth certificate and marriage photo of the embattled Wankhede with telling captions: "Yahanse shuru hua farziwada' (the fraud started here) and Pehchan Kaun (guess who)." Mumbai Cruise Drugs Case: ‘My Family Including My Sister and Deceased Mother Are Being Targeted’, Says Sameer Wankhede.

The birth certificate shows the NCB chief's name as 'Sameer Dawood Wankhede', and the picture is of Wankhede's first wedding with one Dr. Shabana Qureshi, whom he had later divorced and got married with Marathi films actress Kranti Redkar.

The NCP minister claimed that as per the birth certificate, Wankhede is a born Muslim but allegedly appeared for the civic services (UPSC) exams through a reserved category and became an Indian Revenue Service (IRS) officer.

"He has forged the documents to get reservations in the (civil services) examinations and job," Malik contended. In a statement, the NCB Zonal Director said his father is a retired Senior Police Inspector Dnyandev Kachruji Wankhede with State Excise Department, while his mother is the late Zaheeda, who was a Muslim.

Wankhede also confirmed that he had married (Dr. Shabana Qureshi) in a civil ceremony in 2006 under the Special Marriage Act, 1954. "Both of us divorced mutually through Civil Court... in 2016. Later, in 2017, I married Kranti Dinanath Redkar," said Wankhede to Malik's charges.

He termed the publishing of his personal documents as 'defamatory' and 'unnecessary invasion of my family privacy' intended to malign him and his family members. Wankhede said that the series of acts by Malik in the past few days have put him and his family under tremendous mental and emotional pressure, and he was pained by the "nature of personal, defamatory and slanderous attacks... without justification".

Vowing to reveal more dope with evidence, Malik emphatically reiterated that the entire cruiser party raids conducted by Wankhede were fake and everything was being done to malign the Maharashtra government and terrorise Bollywood.

Meanwhile, Wankhede has been summoned to New Delhi by the NCB Director-General to provide an explanation into the stunning allegations levelled by a cruiser ship raid's 'panch-witness' Prabhakar Sail on Sunday, but the agency has termed it as a routine meeting with their top brass.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Oct 25, 2021 03:50 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).