A special court in Lahore acquitted Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah and five others in a narcotics case registered against him with the Anti-Narcotics Force (ANF) during the tenure of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government in 2019.
The minister was arrested in July 2019 under the previous government by the ANF. It had claimed to have recovered 15kg of heroin from his vehicle.
As proceedings commenced on Saturday, ANF Assistant Director Imtiaz Ahmed and Inspector Ehsaan Azam dismissed the charges against Sanaullah, declaring them “wrong”.
Meanwhile, Sanaullah’s counsel Syed Farhad Ali Shah told the court that the allegations levelled against the accused persons were "false, frivolous and baseless". He added that the prosecution remained unable to bring even "an iota of evidence to establish its case against them".
He further argued that the case was launched for "political victimisation" and quoted PTI’s own lawmaker Chaudhry Fawad Hussain’s statement wherein the latter had categorically admitted that “this case was not lodged on the asking of Imran Khan’s government but was lodged by some influential personalities of the country”.
Shortly after the acquittal, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said that of “all PML-N leaders targeted by Niazi regime”, Sanaullah’s case was the “worst example of political persecution with the most dangerous repercussions”.
“He braved these heinous charges and repression with patience and remained steadfast. He is an inspiration for all political workers,” he tweeted.
The prime minister thanked Allah Almighty over “innocent” Sanaullah’s acquittal by a special court in Lahore and asked those “who used to swear on the name of Almighty to seek forgiveness from Allah”.
He said the time had drawn a clear line between truth and falsehood, genuine and forged, and innocent and sinful.
During the course of the hearing, the PML-N leader’s counsel said that the witnesses in the case had admitted in public that unbeknownst to them, they had been named as witnesses in the "false case" while they had no knowledge of the facts.
“These witnesses were not engaged in the investigation, only their names were used as witnesses in the case,” he said.
Furthermore, the CCTV footage of the safe city cameras available on record also negated the prosecution’s version as no incriminating material was available on record to establish their involvement in the said case, the counsel added.
The plea stated that the petitioners should be acquitted on the basis of the benefit of the doubt as doubt is sufficient in this case for the acquittal of the accused.
It further claimed that the prosecution witnesses of the case did not support the version of the complainant.
The petitioners requested that their acquittal application be admitted and they be exonerated from the charge.
Meanwhile, the ANF’s special prosecutors – Ehtesham ul Haq, Rao Zaighum Ali, Danish Mashkoor Siddiqui and Babar Akram Jadoon – present in the courtroom also did not oppose the contentions of the accused party.
Rather, they stated that they can produce the recovery witnesses – ANF Assistant Director Imtiaz Ahmed and Inspector Ehsaan Azam. The witnesses appeared before the court and swore their respective affidavits.
In his affidavit, Ahmed told the court that he had not seen the recovery of 15kg heroin when Rana Sanaullah was arrested while Azam said the recovery was not made before him and he was completely unaware of the incident.
Their affidavits were verified and attested by the ANF’s prosecutors Ehteshamul Haq and Rao Zaighum Ali.
However, another ANF prosecutor, Danish Mashkoor Siddiqui, denied verifying the affidavits of the recovery witnesses and revealed that he had resigned from his post a few minutes earlier.
ANF’s special prosecutor Ehtashemul Haq told the court that he did not want to produce Numan Ghous (inspector) in the support of prosecution’s story as he was also not ready to support the prosecution’s story.
Advocate Farhad Ali Shah argued that witnesses of the recovery memo claimed they are unaware of the story and others are ignoring the case because they know this case was false. He contended now that the prosecutors were not opposing the contentions, nothing was left of the case.
The judge observed that the negative statements of the recovery witnesses technically knocked out the case, adding the recovery of narcotics from the accused persons as alleged by the prosecution cannot be proved.
"Hence the application submitted under section 265-K Cr. P. C is accepted and the accused persons are acquitted of the allegation. Personal search of the accused persons and the vehicle taken into custody be also returned to the owners immediately," the judge ordered.
On July 1, 2019, Sanaullah was arrested by the ANF Lahore team while he was travelling from Faisalabad to Lahore near the Ravi Toll Plaza on the motorway, and the team claimed to have seized 15kg of heroin from his vehicle.
A special team had also arrested five others, including the driver and security guards of the PML-N leader.
According to the FIR registered by the ANF deputy director operations - under sections 186,189 and 353 of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC), while sections 15, 17 of 9C of the Control of Narcotic Substances Act (CNSA) 1997 - the ANF had received information that Rana Sanaullah was involved in drug smuggling and now was now taking heroin to Lahore.
It is pertinent to note that Section 9(C) of the CNSA 1997 carries the death penalty or life imprisonment or a jail term that may extend to 14 years, along with a fine of up to Rs1 million.
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