PESHAWAR: A local court has acquitted a man on the charge of possessing the ice drug and counterfeit currency notes.

Additional district and sessions judge Nasir Khan pronounced that the prosecution failed to prove its case against the accused, Haris Ahmad, a resident of Peshawar, while the evidence available on record, too, didn’t connect him with the commission of the offence.

An FIR against him was registered at the University Town police station on March 15, 2022, under Section 11-B of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Control of Narcotics Substance Act and Section 489-B of the Pakistan Penal Code.

The prosecution claimed that a police patrol had spotted the accused near the Canal Road over suspicious behaviour, body-searched him and seized the ice drug (crystal meth) packed in a plastic envelope along with four counterfeit currency notes valuing Rs1,000.

Bail petitions of the accused were turned down by the Peshawar High Court and the Supreme Court. The apex court had directed the relevant court on June 29 to conclude trial in four months.

The defence counsel, Mohammad Hamdan, claimed that his client was falsely implicated in the case.

He added that the prosecution witnesses had recorded conflicting statements raising doubts about the recovery of the contraband and fake currency notes from his client.

The lawyer argued that while the police claimed the arrest of the accused in a public place, they didn’t produce private witnesses. He contended that the manner and mode of recovery of the contraband was dubious.

The court observed that keeping in view the settled principles of criminal law that a single doubt would be sufficient to discard prosecution story, the prosecution version in the case suffered from many infirmities and contradictions, which caused reasonable doubt about involvement of his client in the commission of the offence.

It ruled that the accused facing trial couldn’t be convicted on the basis of mere surmises or speculations and instead, the prosecution had to prove his guilt by producing reasonable, consistent and admissible evidence.

Published in Dawn, December 25th, 2022