Heroin smuggling: Three drug peddlers awarded life term

The police had arrested the men and seized 66 kilogrammes<br /> of heroin.

KARACHI: A Control of Narcotics Substance Court (CNS) sentenced on Tuesday three men to life imprisonment in a drug smuggling case. 

The court found the accused, Haji Khan, Nasir Khan and Raja Nadeem Ashraf, guilty of smuggling heroin powder.

According to the prosecution, the police had arrested the men and seized 66 kilogrammes of heroin powder from their possession in Rawalpindi. During the course of the interrogation, the police said that the men confessed to smuggling around 100 kilogrammes of heroin powder via a container carrying red-iron oxide to Oman.

Following the confession, the Anti-Narcotics Force (ANF) brought back the container from Oman's Port of Salalah to Port Muhammad Bin Qasim in Karachi before it received clearance on August 25, 2011. The ANF had claimed to have seized the heroin from the container.

A case No. 42/11 was registered against the accused under section 6/9-C of the Control of Narcotic Substances Act, 1997, at the ANF Clifton police station. Judge Sanaullah Khan Ghory of the special CNS-II pronounced the judgment after recording the final arguments of both the sides.

The court also imposed a fine of Rs1 million on each and, in case of non-payment, the accused will have to serve an additional five years of imprisonment. In the verdict, the judge observed that the prosecution had proved its case against the accused by producing sufficient witnesses and evidence before the court.

The judgment also revealed that the accused, Nasir, had earlier been imprisoned for five years in a smuggling case after he was arrested and prosecuted in London.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 12^th, 2014.