PESHAWAR: A local lawyer has moved the Peshawar High Court against what he claimed the growing number of drug addicts on the streets and sought orders for the federal and provincial governments to rehabilitate them and check supply of narcotics to people.

Malik Mohammad Ajmal Khan also requested the court to ask the provincial government to check begging and rehabilitate beggars, especially children and women.

The lawyer insisted in the petition that the number of beggars and drug addicts in the province, especially capital city, had increased manifold during the last many years.

He said though there existed many federal and provincial laws against drugs, including Control of Narcotics Substance Act, 1997, West Pakistan Vagrancy Ordinance, 1959, Pakistan Employment of Children Act, 1991, KP Child Protection and Welfare Act, 2010, and KP Orphanage (Supervision and Control) Act, 1976, but they’d not been implemented effectively to check drug addiction and beggary.

Seeks orders for govt to enforce relevant laws

The petitioner said the KPCPWA was enacted in 2010 and several laws were repealed through it but it hadn’t been enforced, so the number of child beggars was on the rise.

He said the children begging on the streets needed protection under the law and therefore, the child welfare commission should come forward for the purpose.

The petitioner said under the Constitution, the public functionaries were bound to follow the law and fully implement it.

He said the Control of Narcotics Substance Act provided for the establishment of centres for treatment and rehabilitation of drug addicts before the relevant rules were framed but even after the passage of 21 years, the law hadn’t been implemented.

The petitioner said under the CNSA and relevant rules, a national fund for control of drug abuse was to be set up and addicts were to be treated as patients and not criminals.

He claimed that drug pushers had gained access to educational institutions and they provided drugs to young students.

The petitioner said several TV programmes and newspaper reports had highlighted the menace of drug addiction and beggary but the relevant government departments remained indifferent.

He said minor children and women begged on streets in almost all parts of the provincial capital.

The petitioner requested the court to issue orders for the relevant federal and provincial authorities to effectively enforce laws to check beggary and drug addiction.

The respondents in the petition are the interior ministry, Anti-Narcotics Force’s director general, federal law secretary, provincial minister for social welfare, provincial government through its chief secretary, provincial inspector general of police, principal secretaries to the provincial and chief minister, and provincial finance, law, local government and social welfare secretaries.

Published in Dawn, July 7th, 2019