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Thursday July 24, 2025

Judge says no sympathy to accused on gender basis in narcotics cases

By Our Correspondent
January 04, 2023

Karachi: A model court has awarded life imprisonment to a woman and over-12-year imprisonment to her accomplice for possession of drugs.Additional Sessions Judge Zeeshan Akhtar Khan of the Model Criminal Trial Court (West) found Farzana and Qaiser Abbas guilty of possessing around 25 kilogrammes of hashish.

The judge pronounced the verdict earlier reserved after recording evidence and final arguments from the defence and prosecution sides. He handed down life imprisonment to the woman and also imposed a fine of Rs100,000 on her. On default, she would have to undergo additional imprisonment of one year. The court sentenced Abbas to twelve years and six months in prison and ordered him to pay a fine of Rs60,000. In case of failure to pay the fine, he would have to remain in prison for nine more months.

Farzana, who appeared on bail, was subsequently taken into custody and both the convicts were sent to prison to serve out their sentences. The judge observed that courts were supposed to adopt a dynamic approach and not acquit the accused on technicalities. The prosecution had been able to prove its case from all angles and no leniency could be given to the accused on minor contradictions, he said. “It is not out of place to mention here that the Honourable Superior Courts had already observed that in cases pertaining to offence [of] narcotics, the drug peddlers, to achieve their nefarious objectives, had adopted obnoxious device by engaging womenfolk and through them crimes were being committed and ultimately mercy was sought on humanitarian grounds,” the judge noted, adding the superior courts called for adequate punishment to be awarded instead of showing sympathy on the ground of the accused being a woman to curb such a menace, otherwise the actual accused involved in such heinous crime, which was against society, would be encouraged.