KARACHI, Jan 14: An additional district and sessions judge, South, Aslam Shaikh, convicted on Monday two drug peddlers and sentenced them to different prison terms.
The judge sentenced accused Abdus Salam, arrested on May 20 last year with 20 gram heroin by the Chakiwara police, to two and a half years’ rigorous imprisonment with a fine of Rs1,000. The convict would have to undergo an additional one month’s RI if he failed to pay the fine.
The judge sentenced accused Anwer to two years’ RI for possessing 12 gram heroin. The drug peddler was arrested on May 20 last year by the Chakiwara police.
The judicial magistrate, West, Asmatullah, sentenced three men to two years’ RI with a fine of Rs1,000 each for possessing unlicensed pistols.
Accused Sultan Ghani, Mohammed Rahman and Mohammed Jamal were arrested on June 21 last year by a police party, which had seized three unlicensed pistols from them.
The convicts would have to undergo an additional one month’s RI if they defaulted on the payment of fine.
CHARGES FRAMED: The Federal Anti-corruption Court, headed by Judge Muneer Ahmed Khwaja, indicted an alleged human smuggler in a case.
Accused Raja Fayyaz, who was booked for defrauding three jobseekers, however, denied the charges.
He was charged with taking Rs150,000 each from Kalab Abbas, Zamarad Iqbal and Safdar Husain for sending them abroad. The accused allegedly took the three men to Singapore, where they were kept at a free hard labour camp.
Later, the victims’ families contacted the accused to know the whereabouts of their near and dear ones. The families lodged a case against Raja Fayyaz with the Federal Investigation Agency after the accused did not give a satisfactory reply to them.
While the charges were being framed on the accused, one of his alleged victims, Safdar Husain, appeared in the court and informed that he had returned to the country on Jan 8. He, however, did not know where the two other men were.
The court fixed Jan 25 for the hearing of the case and summoned prosecution witnesses.
CORRUPTION REFERENCE: The statement of former federal minister of commerce, Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar, facing corruption charges, could not be recorded as the former minister, who is one of the accused in the corruption reference, did not appear in the court.
The reference pertained to irregularities and corrupt practices in a deal of 50,000 ton rice, which allegedly caused a loss of about Rs67.8 million to the national exchequer.
Judge Dr Qamaruddin Bohra of the accountability court No 1 put off the hearing of the case till Feb 2 after he was informed that accused Ahmed Mukhtar was in Lahore and was unable to come to Karachi due to illness.
Former chief of the Rice Export Corporation, Sukkur, Shaikh Mohammed Ishaq, former federal secretary Salman Farooqui, and Riaz Lalji, a businessman who was benefited by the deal, are absconding in the case.
