Sheesha cafes: Police to crack down on drug use

Owners say police make claims so they could blackmail the cafe owners.

LAHORE: Deputy Inspector General (Operations) Ghulam Mahmood Dogar on Wednesday instructed all divisional superintendents of police (SPs) to take action to stop illicit drug use in sheesha cafes in the city. A press handout from the DIG’s office said that Dogar chaired a meeting on Wednesday whose agenda was to come up with a strategy against sheesha cafes as they were providing drugs to their customers. He said these cafes were ruining the young generation and urged parents not to let their children go to them.  It was unclear from the handout what the police crackdown would involve, as sheesha is not illegal, as the city’s police chief admitted in the Lahore High Court last year. Dania Arif, owner of Sheikhoo’s Café on MM Alam Road and one of the petitioners in the case at the LHC last year, said that no cafe had ever been caught selling illegal drugs. He said the police made these claims so they could blackmail the cafe owners.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 29^th, 2012.