Increasing number of cases of entrapment of women by organised gangs of drug traffickers have perturbed the Peshawar High Court. Till few years ago the courts would adopt lenient view towards women seeking bail in cases of narcotics pushing, but that is no more the case.
A few days ago Chief Justice Dost Mohammad Khan expressed displeasure over involvement of women in cases of drug pushing.
Hearing bail petitions of two women, the chief justice observed that in majority of the cases juveniles and women were used as carriers to deceive the law-enforcement agencies (LEAs) and in this way due to temptation females got entrapped in this detestable business and many were now behind the bars.
Dismissing the two petitions the court observed that this menace needed to be arrested otherwise the smugglers playing behind the scene would be encouraged and the number of women victim would increase each day being easy prey for them.
The two women were arrested by Nowshera police on May 27 while travelling in a passenger coach. The police alleged that they had recovered 18 kgs of charas from one of the accused, eight kgs from the second one and five kgs from their third woman companion. The third accused was granted bail earlier as she was a juvenile. All the three were charged under Section 9 of the Control of Narcotics Substance Act, 1997.
During such cases the chief justice has observed that Afghanistan is the major narcotics producing country and the only gateway of narcotics to outside world is Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and other down country provinces. He observed that they had noticed that big narcotics smugglers here employed women as carrier because the LEAs, including police, usually did not opt for personal search of ladies.
Lawyers dealing with narcotics cases believe that traffickers have been using different tactics for trapping women mostly from poor background. They claim that these traffickers also prefer couples having children to hoodwink the LEAs.
“The persons who hired services of these women traffickers also look after their cases if they are arrested by police or Anti Narcotics Force,” said advocate Nasrun Minallah, adding that they were often used again by the traffickers after their release.
He said that apart from poor women the traffickers had now been trying to entrap educated men and women as in their cases it was difficult for the LEAs to suspect them.
The law dealing with narcotics trafficking, Control of Narcotics Substance Act 1997, was introduced 15 years ago. In this law, there is no distinction between a big trafficker and small drug carrier. Through this law severe punishments were introduced for drug pushing, including death penalty or life imprisonment for the offence of smuggling over 10 kilogrammes of narcotics.
In 2006 an Ordinance was promulgated to ensure release of women on bail in most of the cases. The ordinance was re-promulgated several times and finally it lapsed in 2010. The said ordinance was also laid before the National Assembly in June 2010 and has still been pending there.
When the ordinance was in the field women involved in cases of drug pushing had been getting relief. However, even in that time some of the judges were attaching strict conditions while allowing bail to such women.
“Some of the judges used to order furnishing of bail bonds of millions of rupees, which was almost impossible for these women to furnish,” said Mr Minallah.
Through that ordinance section 497 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, dealing with bail matters, was amended and the concession of bail was provided to women in most of the cases except three categories of offences- terrorism, financial corruption and murder. Even in those three categories of cases the court had powers to release an accused woman keeping in view facts and circumstances of the case.
Lawyers believe that the government and NGOs working for women rights should introduce programmes for rehabilitation of women traffickers so that they should not turn to the illegal business after their release.