KARACHI: A model court on Tuesday handed down one-year imprisonment to a convict for selling ice — a dangerous drug — to students in the metropolis.

The accused, Rohail Shakeel, was found guilty of selling the notorious substance in Defence Housing Authority in 2018.

The additional district and sessions’ judge, Kamran Atta Soomro, of the Model Criminal Trial Court (South) pronounced his judgement reserved after recording evidence and final arguments from both sides.

The judge noted that the prosecution successfully proved the charge against the accused bey­ond a reasonable shadow of doubt.

The judge convicted the accused for committing an offence punishable under Section 9(b) of the Control of Narcotic Substances Act, 1997 and awarded imprisonment for one year and four months.

The court also imposed a fine of Rs11,000 and on default he would undergo an additional imprisonment for four months.

However, the judge extended the benefit of Section 382-B of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC), which states that the period of detention will be considered while awarding sentence of imprisonment.

According to the prosecution, police spotted two men in suspicious condition near Seraiki Pulya, Khayaban-i-Abbasi, DHA Phase-VIII on Dec 27, 2018. On seeing the police, they threw away a plastic bag and tried to escape on foot, it added.

The prosecution mentioned that one accused, Rohail Shakeel, was arrested while his alleged accomplice M. Abbas Baloch fled.

Later, the police claimed to have recovered 110 grams of ice drug from the possession of the arrested accused and 150 grams of charas from the thrown shopping bag.

In its judgment, the court observed the evidence brought on record by the prosecution clearly showed that all of its witnesses corroborated with each other on the point of recovery of the drug ice weighing 110 grams from the possession of the accused, as no major contradictions were found in their testimonies.

The judge further wrote that as per chemical analysis report the substance recovered from the accused was ice drug, as two tests namely Marquis and Thin-Layer Chromatography (TLC) were applied and their results were found positive.

“The laboratory report finally concluded that the substance was found to be methamphetamine, which is commonly known as ice”, the judge mentioned.

The state prosecutor, Arif Satai, contended that two eyewitnesses — complainant Assistant Sub-Inspector Rana Mohammad Rafi and Constable Khalid Mehmood — testified against the detained accused verifying his arrest and recovery of the drugs.

He further argued that the seized narcotics were first sent to the Industrial Analytical Centre for its chemical analysis and then to the Pakistan Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (PCSIR), adding the tests conducted at both laboratories concluded that the substance seized from the accused was ice drug.

He added that the packet recovered from the accused on the spot contained one big packet, eight medium-size packets and 11 small packets of ice drug.

“The accused used to sell the drugs to their clients, including students,” prosecutor Satai added, pleading to the court to punish the accused strictly in accordance with the law.

On the other hand, defence counsel Mohammad Aqeel Shaikh, who was provided on the state’s expense, contended that his client was innocent and framed in the present case, as the prosecution’s evidence suffered from material contradictions, thus the same could not be relied upon to convict the present accused.

He added that both the prosecution witnesses, who were policemen, gave false testimonies, thus the prosecution failed to prove the allegations against his client.

A case was registered under Sections 6/9 of the Control of Narcotic Substances Act, 1997 at the Gizri police station.

Published in Dawn, October 23rd, 2019