Mumbai: A 22-year-old college-goer became the seventh person to be arrested in the suspected drug overdose case in Goregaon where two MBA students lost their lives and a third is critical. Vineet Gerlani was produced before a magistrate court at Borivli, along with the six other accused persons, on Thursday. The magistrate remanded all the accused to police custody till April 18.A 28-year-old man and a 24-year-old woman—part of a group of 19 MBA students from a prestigious management institute—took ill after popping Ecstasy pills at a music concert held at Nesco in Goregaon East on April 11. The duo died at different hospitals the next day while a third student—a 25-year-old woman—remains critical in hospital. Police arrested two of their fellow students—Ronak Khandelwal and Pratik Pandey—for allegedly providing the drugs. Pandey has told the police that a construction businessman, Anand Patel, supplied him with 20 Ecstasy pills. Police then arrested Patel.Police said they are now looking for two individuals who had provided the drugs to Patel and Pandey. The duo was also present at the music concert, along with Gerlani.Police have reportedly found Snapchat conversations on Gerlani’s phone that show he had “supplied drugs to several people and received money into his bank account”. Further, the police came across a large volume of phone calls between Gerlani and one of two individuals that they are hunting for. Police have found financial transactions between Gerlani and this individual and are probing whether they pertained to the sale of narcotics.In their remand application presented before the court, police have said the two wanted individuals had been present at earlier events at Goregaon as well, prompting them to probe the possibility of a larger racket. The remand application further says that the 24-year-old woman, who died from a suspected overdose of Ecstasy, had taken the same drug at another event in Goregaon with Pandey.Police have also claimed that the accused had conversed about drug procuring and financial dealings in a WhatsApp group chat which has been deleted.A lawyer representing two Nesco employees, who have also been arrested in the case, told the Borivli magistrate court on Thursday that they had taken all necessary permissions for the music concert, followed all possible security protocol and couldn’t be paraded with “drug peddlers”.“We have been organising events at Nesco since 1995, including international exhibitions, and there has never been any issue,” said the lawyer. In a disclosure to the stock exchanges, Nesco said they maintain a strict zero-tolerance policy towards the possession, use, or distribution of illegal substances within its premises.The students’ lawyers said they had no criminal antecedents and had, in fact, rushed the critically ill woman to hospital. Advocates Surendra Landge and Azad Gupta, representing Gerlani and Patel, said the accusations levelled against them were untrue.
