Drug Smuggling: Flight steward sent on 3-day remand

RAWALPINDI:

Anti Narcotics Force (ANF) Friday obtained a three-day remand of a PIA employee for carrying narcotics. His wife was sent to Adiala jail for two weeks.

The ANF arrested Muhammad Idrees Khan, a flight steward, and his wife Anila Butt, an air hostess, on Thursday night as PIA flight PK-319 was to take off for Karachi from Benazir Bhutto International Airport, as 2.4 kilograms of heroin was recovered from their luggage.

The investigators asked for physical remand of the flight steward for three days to question him. The magistrate directed the ANF to have the accused airhostess medically examined before sending her to jail and asked the investigators to produce Idrees in court on June 6 for further proceedings.

Idrees alleged the luggage was handed over to them by a man named Rehmat Saeed, saying it should be delivered to his relatives in Karachi. Idrees said Rehmat is the nephew of Najamud Din Khan, a former federal minister.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 4^th, 2011.