PESHAWAR, April 6: A number of women are falling prey to different gangs of drug traffickers due to economic and other factors.

Most of these women are either poor or their children are made hostage by the traffickers due to which they have been working as carriers, informed women arrested in this connection.

In past the number of women arrested under the Offence of Zina (Enforcement of Hudood) Ordinance, 1979, outnumbered other women prisoners, but now the situation had changed and the women arrested in narcotics cases were more than those arrested in any other offence, said a lawyer dealing in narcotics cases.

Last year a drug pusher from Khyber Agency, Abdul Hameed, had informed the Anti-Narcotics Force (ANF) that a gang of traffickers in Ali Masjid area of the agency smuggled narcotics through women and had employed an old lady belonging to Tehkal area of Peshawar. He claimed that the said woman used to visit areas where people of low income group lived.

He claimed that the woman was in touch with more than 30 such poor women who were willing to carry drug on nominal payment from 1,000 to 5,000 rupees. Similarly, he claimed that young and pretty women were hired for accompanying men carriers for smuggling narcotics through luxurious new model vehicles.

A woman Farhada, who was recently granted bail by a local court, said that she belonged to a poor family of Jehangira, Nowshera district, and was having six children. She claimed that her husband was a poor farmer.

She said: “Last year a woman named Nazuka of the same village approached me and asked for carrying some charas to Lahore from Peshawar. I consulted my husband and accepted her offer”. The woman claimed that she was also accompanied by another woman of her village, but both of them were arrested near Peshawar Cantt Railway Station by the customs mobile squad.

A member of a gang of drug traffickers, who was acquitted by a court last year due to lack of evidence, had told the ANF during investigation that his ring leader made children of different poor women hostages and forced them to carry drugs to different cities.

The person, who was arrested from Hayatabad Township, had stated that these women had no other option but to comply with the orders of the ring leader so as to save the lives of their children.

There is no distinction between an ordinary drug carrier and a drug trafficker under the Control of Narcotics Substance Act, 1997, the law introduced for checking narcotics trafficking. The law carries punishment of death or life imprisonment for the offence of smuggling more than 10 kilograms of narcotics.