Man sentenced to nine years in prison for drug trafficking

A sessions court has sentenced a man to nine years in prison in a drug trafficking case. Zahoor Ahmed was found guilty of possessing over four kilogrammes of charas within the remits of the Surjani Town police station in May 2023.

Additional District and Sessions Judge (West) Aurangzeb Shah observed that the prosecution successfully proved the charge against the accused beyond any reasonable shadow of doubt. "In the present case, the accused was found trafficking illegal narcotics viz. chars and this has been established with convincing evidence," he said and noted that the accused did not deny being present at the alleged place of the incident or the recovery of the alleged narcotics but claimed that the police planted it on him.

"However, he did not provide any reason why the police would plant such a large quantity of narcotics on him," the judge added. "In his statement under Section 342 of the Criminal Procedure Code he only stated that he is innocent. The court found no indication that the police officials responsible for the arrest and recovery were untrustworthy or had any motive to falsely implicate the accused. Furthermore, the court deemed it highly improbable that the significant quantity of narcotics found concealed in the accused's possession could have been planted by the police."

He said that there was no substantial evidence to support the claim that the accused was falsely implicated in this case. "Upon a thorough examination of the case as a whole, with particular emphasis on the astute trafficking of the chars by the accused, it becomes unmistakably clear that the matter under scrutiny has been decisively proven against him," he added.

The judge awarded nine-year imprisonment to the convict and ordered him to pay a fine of Rs100,000 or undergo additional six-month imprisonment over failure to pay the same. According to the prosecution, a patrol party of the Surjani Town police station arrested accused Zahoor near Green Bus Stop, Surjani Town, after charas weighing 4.376 kilogrammes was seized from his possession on May 24, 2023. It said that the police had received spy information that one person was coming there for supply of drugs.

The defence counsel, on the other hand, contended that all the prosecution witnesses were police officials, who cannot be relied upon for convicting his client. He also pointed out inconsistencies in the prosecution case, requesting the judge to acquit the accused. An FIR was lodged under Section 6/9 of Control of Narcotic Substances (Amendment) Act, 2022.