KARACHI, March 5: A special court for Control of Narcotics Substances (CNS) on Saturday acquitted a man in a drug trafficking case after it was informed that the investigation officer of the case had escaped along with the seized drugs and relevant documentary evidence.

Accused Mukhtiar Shah was charged with possessing 21 kilograms of hashish in January 2005 in the Saeedabad area.Senior officials of the excise and taxation department informed the court that the IO, Inspector Deedar Ali Mirani of the excise police, had neither deposited the case property (21 kg of hashish) to the excise malkhana nor had he submitted the police file of the case to the excise police station.

They said that the IO had been removed from service and his whereabouts were unknown.

In view of their evidence, Judge Sanaullah Khan Ghoury of the Special CNS Court-II exonerated the accused from all charges for want of evidence.

The court in its verdict observed that the prosecution was unable to produce the alleged recovery in court and it only submitted the photocopies of the memos of the alleged seizure and the arrest, which were not admissible under the law.

“Admittedly, the IO/complainant has not been examined and the prosecuting agency also failed to produce a single iota against the accused in respect of alleged recovery of hashish, thus the accused was found innocent,” it added.

“Copy of this order be sent to secretary to the government of Sindh, excise department, Karachi, and director general, excise & taxation Sindh, Karachi to take necessary action against the then excise inspector Deedar Ali Mirani for his gross criminal negligence on his part and by misappropriate the charras [hashish] of the case in the court, the report may be submitted in the court within one month,” the verdict concluded.

The accused, who had been granted bail, was present in court on Saturday and after the pronouncement of the verdict, the court cancelled his bail bond and discharged the surety.

According to the prosecution, acting on a tip-off a team of the excise police headed by Inspector Mirani raided a house in Saeedabad on Jan 16, 2005 and recovered 21kg of hashish and arrested the accused.

A case (FIR 02/05) was registered against the accused under Section 9-C of the Control of Narcotic Substances Act, 1997 at the excise police station.

The same court earlier acquitted two other accused since the IO of the case, Inspector Mirani, had taken away the case property (one kg of hashish). Moreover, the court had also exonerated eight other accused persons in three other cases as the IO of these cases, Inspector Saleh Kerio, had neither appeared in court nor produced the case property i.e. 425 kilos of hashish.