PESHAWAR, April 16: A two-member bench of the Peshawar High Court has reserved its judgment on an appeal of a woman sentenced to life imprisonment by a trial court for drug pushing.

The appellant, Ms Sameena, resident of Lahore, has claimed that a gang of drug traffickers had forced her to sit in a vehicle carrying drugs by threatening to kill her children.

The woman said she was neither the owner of the seized narcotics nor was smuggling it as she was forced to sit in the vehicle.

The bench, comprising Chief Justice Mian Shakirullah Jan and Justice Khalida Rachied, reserved the judgment after completion of arguments by appellant’s counsel Noor Alam Khan and anti-narcotics force (ANF) representative Tariq Kakar.

The appellant was sentenced to life imprisonment by the Nowshera district and sessions judge on Sept 15, 2001.

The ANF had claimed that they had prior information about smuggling of the contraband to Punjab by a gang of traffickers. The ANF officials stopped a jeep near Tarnab Farm, Nowshera district, on Dec 12, 1999. The driver fled from the scene, whereas two women in the jeep, Ms Sameena and Ms Sakeena, were arrested.

The ANF recovered 108 kilograms of charas and six kilograms of opium from the jeep.

In her confessional statement, the appellant admitted that she knew about the presence of narcotics in the vehicle. She claimed that they had a female acquaintance in Peshawar named Lubna who was a member of a gang of the drug traffickers.

She said when they visited that woman, she asked her to accompany a driver to Lahore in a vehicle carrying drug, otherwise, her children in Lahore would be killed.

The appellant further said that she realised that the members of the gang were dangerous people and that was the reason she sat in the jeep.

The court convicted her whereas the other woman, Ms Sakeena, was acquitted as she claimed that she was not aware of the presence of the narcotics in the jeep.