Top executive of Yash Birla Group held for possessing drug

A top executive of a business conglomerate and his two aides have been arrested for allegedly possessing contraband by Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) and remanded in their custody till January 16 by a local court.
The NCB arrested Anant Vardhan Pathak, a top executive of the group, his peon and security officer last night from a five-star hotel.
All the three were produced before a local court which remanded them in NCB custody till January 16.
Rohit Katiyar, zonal director of NCB, confirmed the arrest but refused to divulge any further details, saying an investigation was under progress.
The case came to light after the investigation department of Income Tax conducted a search at a five-star hotel in South Mumbai in connection with taxation purposes against the Group last week.

When the sleuths went to the hotel room where Pathak was staying and started conducting searches, they found some contraband.

Immediately, the NCB was roped in, which confirmed that the seized drug was about five grams of cocaine.
"After we received the information, we seized the contraband and recorded the statements of IT officials and also of Pathak," a source said.
During questioning of Vardhan, they found a prime facie case of possession of drug and arrested him along with two others after charging him under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, the source said.
They also said that once they get their custody, they would be questioning Pathak about the source of the contraband, who supplied it to him and why did he purchase it.

The sources did not rule out the possibility of probing as to how the drug reached inside the high security hotel, which is often visited by VVIPs.
However, attempts to contact the Group proved futile.