September 20, 2008	Saturday	Ramazan 19, 1429

PESHAWAR, Sept 19: The Peshawar High Court has granted bail to a person charged by the local police with selling contraband disguising himself to be a hermit at a graveyard.

A single bench comprising Justice Shahjehan Khan Yousafzai directed the petitioner, Misri Khan, a resident of Wahid Garhi, to furnish two sureties of Rs100,000 each.

The court observed that the police had alleged that they had recovered charas from the accused-petitioner whereas the chemical examination report on record was that of heroin and not charas.

An FIR was registered against the petitioner at police station Chamkani on Feb 12, 2005, under section 9 of the Control of Narcotics Substance Act, 1997.

The police alleged that they had report that a person lived in a hut nearby a graveyard and had been posing himself to be a hermit and also act as faith healer whereas in fact he had been selling contraband to people. They alleged that when they raided his hut they recovered eight kgs of charas whereas the accused escaped from the scene.

The accused was later on arrested on Oct 11, 2007, by the police. Earlier, his bail application was dismissed by the subordinate court.

The petitioner’s counsel, Noor Alam Khan, contended that the police had registered a fabricated case against him. He pointed out that apart from other flaws in the prosecution case the major contradiction was in the chemical examination report.

He stated that while the police claimed of recovering charas from the said hut the chemical examination report was that of heroin.

A day earlier a deputy advocate general (DAG), Barrister Waqar, had stated that the police ahd erroneously placed report of another case on the file. The court directed him to produce the real report the next day.

However, the concerned report could not be produced and the DAG sought more time for production of the missing report. The court declined to give them further time observing that the petitioner had already been behind the bars for about a year.