PESHAWAR, Nov 8: A mother of two minor children, who had been accused of drug pushing, was granted bail on Saturday.

The additional district and sessions judge, Nowshera, Mah Tallat, directed that the accused-petitioner, Ms Zubeda, should be released after furnishing two sureties amounting to Rs100,000 each.

The petitioner was arrested by customs officials on March 9, while she was travelling from Peshawar to Lahore. The police allegedly recovered some smuggled cloths and 10 kilogrammes of charas from her possession.

In her confessional statement, she stated that she had no source of income as her husband was in prison, adding that she had two children, Adnan and Kainat.

She stated that she had been lured by a woman, who had promised to pay her some money in return for carrying some foreign cloths to Punjab.

She said that she had already carried a small consignment of cloths, adding that she never intended to be involved in narcotics trafficking.

The woman said that she was not aware about the presence of narcotics on the day she was detained by customs officials, blaming the owners of the consignment for hiding drugs in her baggage.

Recently, during a visit to the prison, a judicial officer had found the woman incarcerated with two children — a one-year- old girl and a two-year-old boy.

The judicial officer informed the Voice of Prisoners, a non- governmental organisation, about the plight of the woman as she had no money to hire a lawyer.

The chairman of the NGO, Noor Alam Khan, appeared on behalf of the woman, pleading that the petitioner had no prior knowledge of narcotics in the said luggage.

He contended that the woman deserved to be shown some leniency as she had two small children and her daughter was ill and was not receiving proper treatment inside the prison.