KARACHI: A sessions court on Monday sentenced four peddlers, including an underage boy, to 14 years in prison for possessing over 20kg of drugs.

Additional District and Sessions Judge (West) Aurangzeb Shah found a car driver, Muhammad Saleem, and three passengers — Sikandar, Syed Wali and underage Muhammad Ahmed Khan — guilty of possessing over 20kg of charas.

The drug was recovered by the Special Investigation Unit (SIU) during snap checking of a car near Musharraf Colony within the remits of Mauripur police station.

“Upon a thorough examination of the case as a whole, with particular emphasis on the astute trafficking of the charas by the accused persons, it becomes unmistakably clear that the matter under scrutiny has been decisively proven against them,” the court observed.

The court also imposed a fine of Rs400,000 each, on default they will have to serve additional six months in prison.

According to state prosecutor Saleem Abbas Soomro, during a patrol on June 16, 2024, the SIU team found four suspicious persons in a car, who were coming towards TCS school near Musharraf Colony and asked them to stop their vehicle. As they searched them, the SIU recovered over 20kg of charas.

In the order, regarding the defence counsel’s argument that the prosecution witnesses were police officials, the court noted that the police witnesses hold the same credibility as other private witnesses.

“Their [police officials] statements cannot be dismissed solely on the basis of their employment as police personnel. They are competent witnesses, just like any other independent witness, and their testimony cannot be disregarded solely on the grounds of their employment as police employees,” the court observed.

“If the accused cannot provide any evidence supporting their innocence, the court may be unable to find them not guilty,” it added.

The order said the accused persons did not express any ill will towards the police officials who testified against them, and their only explanation was that the police falsely implicated them.

They did not deny that they were present at the alleged place of the incident or the recovery of the alleged narcotics and their only claim was that the police had falsely implicated them. However, the court noted that they did not provide any reason as to why the police would plant such a large quantity of narcotics upon them.

A case was registered at SIU police station under Section 6/9 (1) 3 (D) of the Control of Narcotic Substances (Amendment) Act, 2022.

Published in Dawn, February 25th, 2025