PESHAWAR, April 7: A Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal's MPA Akhter Nawaz and two former police officers were indicted for drug trafficking by the court of additional district and sessions judge Shehbar Khan on Wednesday.

The accused pleaded not guilty to the offence and decided to stand trial. The court fixed April 16 for next hearing and summoned all the prosecution witnesses including the investigation officer in the case Jawed Khan. Mr Nawaz, belonging to Jamiat-i-Ulema-i-Pakistan (Noorani), appeared before the court along with his counsel Mian Abdul Fayyaz.

The court accepted the request of Mr Nawaz and exempted him from personal appearance in the trial. The defence counsel Mian Abdul Fayyaz contended that as Mr Nawaz has to attend sessions of the provincial assembly, therefore he may be exempted from personal appearance. He stated that there was no possibility that the defendant would abscond.

Apart from Mr Nawaz, the other two accused are former policemen Mirdas Khan and Musharraf Khan. Public Prosecutor Saleem Khan appeared for the state. The MPA is already on bail which was granted to him after he was arrested in 1999. At that time he was not an MPA. He got elected in the Oct 2002 general elections from Haripur as an independent candidate and joined the JUP soon after the polls.

Mr Khan was charged along with the two cops in an FIR registered at East Cant police station on Jun 21, 1999. The three of them are charged with drug trafficking. The cops namely Mirdas Khan and Musharraf Khan were later on removed from service by the police department.

The issue had surfaced in 1999 when the two constables were travelling in an official car of police department bearing registration No NWFP 2005 Pesh A and it met an accident near Hassanabdal. The vehicle was damaged and was taken into custody by the police there.

The NWFP police started an inquiry as the car was not on official duty. The two cops allegedly claimed that they used to smuggle heroin in the official police vehicle to Haripur where they hand over the consignment to Akhter Nawaz, who hails from Haripur.

They claimed that they had smuggled heroin in the official car nine or ten times and the consignment in fact belonged to Mr Nawaz. On the basis of their statements the police department registered an FIR under section 9 of Control of Narcotics Substance Act, 1997, and sections 420, 419, 109 and 427 of Pakistan Penal Code.