KARACHI: The Sindh High Court (SHC) has set aside the life imprisonment handed down to a man by a trial court in a drug peddling case.

A two-judge bench, headed by Justice Omar Sial, observed that a non-professional and casual approach was taken by the police in the recovery, seizure, safe custody and transmission of the narcotics.

It also directed the inspector general of police to review the service record of two police officers, complainant Zahid Umar and investigating officer (IO) Zameer Ahmed, and to determine whether they were conducting investigations properly and without any bias.

A sessions court (West) had sentenced Allah Ditta to life imprisonment in 2023 for carrying 78 kilograms of hashish in January 2018 in the Site area.

The convict through his counsel challenged the conviction before the SHC and after hearing both sides and examining the record and proceedings of the case, the bench allowed the appeal and set aside the conviction.

It noted that there were glaring contradictions in the evidence of prosecution witnesses as complainant sub-inspector Zahid Umar testified that he had recovered 39 packets of hashish from a black coloured suitcase and 20 packets were from a brown coloured bag of the appellant while head constable Mohammad Nawaz, a witness of arrest and recovery memos, deposed that 20 packets were recovered from red suitcase and 39 packets from the back bag while both witnesses also differed over weight of recorded drugs.

About safe custody of recovered drugs, the bench observed that neither the complainant nor IO Zameer Ahmed or any other witness could explain where the case property was for nearly 12 hours after its recovery and the chain of safekeeping was broken.

Safe custody and transmission continued to be compromised when IO said that on Jan 19, 2018, he took the accused to a hospital for a medical check-up and then to court for a remand and when they reached City Courts, the court time was over. Therefore, he returned with the accused to the station and when the IO was asked at trial court when he deposited hashish at the office of the chemical analyst, he replied that he had dropped off the same at the chemical analyst before he had taken the accused to the hospital and for seeking remand, it added.

However, the bench also noted that the IO could not produce the original letter which showed the deposit with the analyst because he had misplaced it and he had also not produced the original chemical report as that too had been lost.

“We also find the prosecution’s story rather unnatural. Why would a person, ostensibly deeply entrenched in the narcotics trade, stand aimlessly on a road at midnight? We are also skeptical whether the quantity of narcotics as claimed could even fit into the suitcase and the bag. Even if it did, surely that would make it even more unnatural to have a man stand on a road in the middle of the night with a substantial quantity of charas”, it added.

The bench further observed that the contradictions between the account narrated by seizing officer and seizing witness, on matters where there was no reason to give different accounts when both claimed to be present, also added to doubt about the veracity and accuracy of the events testified by the prosecution witnesses.

Published in Dawn, July 4th, 2025