KARACHI: A sessions court indicted on Saturday a couple and their son in the Jeddah heroin trafficking case.

The three suspects – Syed Sarwat Hussain, his wife Shafia and their son Syed Afraz Hussain – have been charged with gifting heroin-filled footwear to Umra pilgrims who were subsequently detained by the Saudi authorities following their arrival at Jeddah airport on charges of drug trafficking.

Vth Additional District and Sessions Judge (east) Munawar Sultana read out the charges against the suspects. However, they pleaded not guilty and opted to contest the case. The court subpoenaed the prosecution witnesses for Nov 2.

The couple surrendered themselves to the police on June 22 while their son Syed Afraz Hussain had been arrested on June 17 in his house in Korangi and the police said that they had also seized 120 grams of heroin in his house.

According to the prosecution, the accused had posed themselves as agents of a travel agency and they sent people to Saudi Arabia on reasonable packages to perform Umra and on June 1, 2009 they sent eight Pakistanis to Saudi Arabia to perform Umra. They sent eight persons, of them three were their relatives, to Saudi Arabia and gifted them ahram and the heroin-filled footwear, without informing them about the drug before their departure.

The prosecution added that the accused along with their absconding accomplices had been involved in the heinous crime of heroin smuggling for quite some time.

Earlier, the investigation officer had filed a charge-sheet against the suspects, stating that two witnesses, Jahangir Hussain and Mohammad Riaz, had recorded their statements under Section 164 of the criminal procedure code before a judicial magistrate and they maintained that the suspects were travel agents and they often invited customers to their home and gifted ahrams and footwear to them prior to their departure.

According to the statement of a witness, he also saw Shafia handing over a number of small white packets to her husband, Sarwat. He said that Jabbar Tunio and Ibrahim Chandio used to provide these ‘gifts’ to the accused.

The charge-sheet further stated that another witness, Mohammad Riaz, in his statement before the judicial magistrate said that he and his wife went to Saudi Arabia along with the accused last year and the accused gave them some footwear before their departure from Pakistan and had asked them to return the same when they came out of the airport in Saudi Arabia.

The IO has placed the names of 20 prosecution witnesses in the charge-sheet while Abdul Jabbar Tunio and Ibrahim Chandio have been shown as absconding accused in the case.

A case (FIR 232/09) was registered against the accused under Sections 120-B (punishment of criminal conspiracy) and 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property) of the Pakistan Penal Code on the complaint of Raees Ahmed, the father of a victim, at the Awami Colony police station.

The Awami Colony police also lodged another case (235/09) against the three accused under Sections 6 and 9-B of the Control of Narcotic Substances Act, 1997.

Later, two more cases (357/09 and 807/09) were registered against the couple on court orders under Section 3 of the Pakistan Penal Code read with Sections 6 and 9-C of the CNS Act and Sections 420, 468, 471 and 34 of the PPC at the Awami Colony and Preedy police stations, respectively.

Two victims identify couple

A judicial magistrate (east) recorded on Saturday the statements of Mohammad Arif Chauhan and Mohammad Anees, who were recently released by the Saudi authorities, under Section 164 of the criminal procedure code. They identified the couple in court and deposed that the couple had introduced themselves as agents of a travel agency and invited them to their house and gifted them ahrams and footwear prior to their departure.

They added that following their arrival at Jeddah airport, the Saudi security officials had recovered heroin concealed in the footwear gifted by the accused and they were detained by the Saudi authorities on the charges of drug trafficking.

The statements of the witnesses were recorded in a case (FIR 357/09) registered against the couple under Section 3 of the Pakistan Penal Code read with Section 6 and 9-C of the CNS Act.