Juhu police may summon Rahul Sharma soon, leg spinner’s family claim he is teetotaler and had not taken any drugs

Indian leg-spinner Rahul Sharma who is touring Sri Lanka with the Indian team is likely to soon receive a call from Juhu police officials who are summoning again the 42 individuals they had earlier found consuming narcotics, says a report in The DNA. Sharma was present at a sundown party in Juhu’s Oakwood hotel when the police had raided its premises in April, only to find 110 grams of cocaine on the floor.

“We will start summoning the second batch of people who have tested positive for drugs consumption from Monday. The senior officers will decide the course of action against those who are out of the country,” said senior inspector Arun Bhagat of Juhu police station. The offenders will first be summoned to the police station, following which they would be booked under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, and finally they would be produced in court, says the report, adding that all the individuals at Juhu had been booked under a section which is of a bailable nature.

Meanwhile, BCCI officials have been tight-lipped over Rahul Sharma’s future. Rajiv Shukla did come out with a statement but he did not reveal much. “We are not going to take any action in haste. First we will study the report. We have got a provision in the players’ code of conduct, and accordingly we will proceed. We will also try to find out why it took so long for the Mumbai police to submit this report,” the IPL chairman said.

Meanwhile according to a report in The Times Of India, Sharma’s family has claimed that he is innocent and they have full faith in him. His father Pardeep Sharma, a sub-inspector of Punjab police said that he and his family were sure that Rahul was a teetotaler and had not taken any drugs. He did not rule out the possibility of Rahul being implicated. Reacting on the issue on Saturday, Sharma pointed out with an element of skepticism that Rahul and Parnell's reports were delayed for around two months though reports of others were out much earlier. "Why did this happen?" this said.

Rahul, after his return from Mumbai, had announced in Jalandhar on May 21 that he would quit cricket if found positive for drugs, Pardeep Sharma said that Rahul said it with conviction as he had not taken any drug. "In any case, we will go by BCCI's decision," he said. Rahul had said that he was not even aware of what a rave party was.