FOR the crime reporters of Islamabad 2013 had begun with snooping for the facts of the story that Kohsar police had broken two days before the new year that they had caught an officer of a federal ministry peddling narcotics. While the capital police are yet to establish the facts, Dawn's investigations make the police story look more of a drama despite some juicy facts. Most of the times, police investigations are a maze where facts change with each twist and turn. So was the case with who, how, where and with what quantity of illicit marijuana was the alleged peddler arrested. On December 30, the Kohsar police had informed the media that on a tip-off by its Sub-Inspector Mushtaq Dhari the Mehran car of a personal secretary of a federal minister was intercepted and he was arrested for carrying 1.5kg of charas (marijuana). After that the police went silent on further developments in the case. A senior police officer responsible for keeping track of the progress of cases registered by police stations, however, was puzzled to see that the designation of the accused and the quantity of narcotics recovered from him, had been lowered twice. In the Kohsar police records reduced the accused to ‘a stenographer’ in the ministry and the quantity to 225 grams. Suspicious, the officer started his own investigations and was in for greater surprise. The Kohsar staff said the accused had meanwhile secured bail from a court, which is not easy as possessing 100 grams of narcotics carries a seven-year jail term in the case of conviction. His investigations further revealed that SI Mushtaq Dhari provided exact information about the registration number, make and colour of the official car the accused would be using for drug trafficking. But surprisingly the policemen who intercepted it could not find the narcotics he was supposed to be carrying. Neither could senior officers who arrived at the scene from the Kohsar and Aabpara police stations. Eventually, SI Dhari was called and he went straight for the driver's seat and pulled out a plastic bag from underneath it. Those who had searched the car before had given up the bag for its insignificant contents - coal. But SI Dhari retrieved another bag containing charas from it. Although the car was intercepted and checked near Faizabad in the jurisdiction of Aabara police, witnesses deposed that SI Dhari persuasively insisted that the Kohsar police handle the case. Blue Area, falling in the Kohsar precinct was, therefore, shown as the place of arrest. While the accused was arrested, and sent to jail after being booked under Section 9-B of Narcotics Act, his parents and younger brother travelling with him were allowed to go home. But what home? They all were on their way to finalise the engagement of the brother to a girl with her family living in Rawalpindi. And here the senior police officer's investigations “turned up the juicy part”. It is claimed the accused had “illicit relations” with a woman from his native Jhang living in Islamabad. The woman wanted him to marry his younger brother to her daughter. He promised but acted otherwise, which infuriated the woman. She is supposed to have persuaded a Jhang resident to visit her alleged lover on December 29. Late at night, his brother took the visitor out in the family car and by the time they returned home the latter is believed to have put the narcotics in the car. Even if it happened as the police investigations say, it remains a mystery how SI Mushtaq Dhari came to know all this? That the senior investigator hopes to know when Dhari and the Kohsar Station House Officer reply to his ‘show cause notice’ to them. Until then, the policemen believed to have reaped money from the woman for helping her take her revenge, and the accused for facilitating his bail, can enjoy their fortune.