PESHAWAR, June 22: A juvenile court on Tuesday granted bail to a juvenile offender accused of drug pushing. The court, directed that the petitioner, Sheraz Ali, should be released after furnishing two sureties of Rs200,000 each.

The court observed that the accused-petitioner had been behind the bars for more than a year and being a juvenile he was entitled to be 0released on bail. The petitioner was arrested by the Crimes Investigation department (CID), while he was travelling in a Suzuki pick-up.

The CID had also arrested the driver of the vehicle named Fareedullah Khan. From the computer monitors present in the vehicle the officials had recovered 100 kgs of charas. They were charged under section 9(c) of the Control of Narcotics Substance Act.

Initially, the two accused were tried by an additional district and sessions judge jointly and Shiraz was sentenced to life imprisonment whereas the driver was acquitted.

A month ago the Peshawar High Court set aside his conviction and remanded the case to the juvenile court, observing that he was not tried under the Juvenile Justice System Ordinance 2000, which was illegal.

The chairman, Voice of Prisoners, Noor Alam Khan, appeared for the petitioner and argued that he was arrested on April 8, 2003, and he had been behind the bars for more than a year.

He added that as the case was remanded back, therefore the charge would be framed again against the petitioner and he would be tried afresh which would take a lot of time.

Mr Khan stated that it was an established fact that the petitioner was a juvenile offender and he had never committed any crime before, therefore he was entitled to be released on bail. The court was headed by additional district and sessions judge Tariq Yousufzai.