MUMBAI: Maharashtra NCP minister Nawab Malik on Monday claimed that Narcotics Control Bureau's zonal director Sameer Wankhede used forged documents including his birth certificate.
Malik tweeted a photo of the purported certificate, saying "Sameer Dawood Wankhede ka yahan se shuru hua furjiwada. (Sameer Dawood Wankhede's document forging started from here)."
Wankhede, an IRS officer of the 2008 batch, slammed the minister, saying his action was defamatory in nature and an invasion of his family's privacy.
The NCB official said he was pained by the nature of personal defamatory and slanderous attacks by the minister without any justification.
"The series of acts of the minister over the past few days have put me and my family under tremendous mental and emotional pressure," Wankhede said in a statement.
An NCB team led by Wankhede earlier this month allegedly seized drugs onboard a cruise ship off the Mumbai coast following which Aryan Khan, the son of Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan, was arrested on October 3.
Malik has repeatedly termed the cruise drugs bust case as "fake".
On Monday, the document posted by Malik on Twitter mentioned the name of the NCB official's father as Dawood.
Wankhede said his father's name is Dnyandev, who was an excise official.
Malik has been targeting Wankhede after his son-in-law Sameer Khan was arrested in an alleged drug case.
The minister had claimed that NCB officials booked Sameer Khan under wrong charges and no banned drug was found in his possession.
Malik, who is also the NCP spokesperson, recently claimed that his government will soon put Wankhede behind the bars.
On Monday, talking to a news channel in Nanded, Malik claimed that Wankhede is a Muslim by birth.
"In the past 15 days, whenever I spoke on various subjects like the Maldives tour (of Wankhede), I didn't get any answers and they were termed as political allegations. But, now the truth has come out," he said.
Malik stated that earlier the BJP had said his son-in-law and Aryan Khan are Muslims.
Later, the BJP's "troll army" tried to create an environment, making it a Hindu-Muslim issue via Wankhede, he alleged.
"NCB zonal director Wankhede's name is 'Sameer Dawood Wankhede', and he is a Muslim by birth. I have published his birth certificate (online). I had to make an effort to find it. He got the IRS job on bogus certificate. I shall reveal more such acts of his 'bogusgiri'," he said.
Malik also alleged that by "hiding" his religion, he (Wankhede) obtained fake documents and through this, the right of a backward class candidate was snatched.
Notably, Union minister Ramdas Athawale on Sunday came out in support of Wankhede and said targeting a Dalit officer who is doing good work is not right.
Terming Malik's allegations against Wankhede as "baseless" and "mischievous", Athawale had defended the officer, saying he has not done anything wrong.
Athawale had also accused Malik of trying to give a religious and casteist colour while targeting Wankhede.
Meanwhile, reacting to Malik's claims, Wankhede in a press release said the minister's act of publishing his personal information on Twitter was "defamatory in nature and unnecessary invasion of his family's privacy".
Wankhede said this was intended to malign him, his family, his father, and his late mother.
In the statement, Wankhede mentioned that his father Dnyandev Kachruji Wankhede retired as senior police inspector of the state Excise department, Pune, in June 2007.
“My mother was Muslim and my father a Hindu. I got married to Dr Shabhana Qureshi under the special marriage act. Then we got legally divorced and I married Kranti Redkar. There is a malicious campaign to defame me and my family members,” Wankhede added.
Sources said Sameer Wankhede’s father converted to Islam to marry his wife Zaheeda and changed his name from Dnyandev to Dawood. However, Sameer Wankhede's birth certificate was allegedly amended later to remove Dawood and insert Dnyandev as his father's name. The changes were made when the BMC carried out the digitisation of birth and death certificates.
“An FIR will be filed against Wankhede stating that he forged documents. An inquiry will be set up to verify his documents and caste certificates. If by birth Sameer Wankhede is Muslim, then he cannot be from the Hindu backward class. All the details will be unearthed in a probe,” said a government official, requesting anonymity.
(With PTI inputs)