Suspect remanded in police custody for one day

A judicial magistrate on Sunday granted a day’s police remand of a renowned actor’s son in a drug trafficking case. The Special Investigation Unit’s (SIU) Inspector Syed Ghous Alam produced Syed Sahir Hassan before the duty magistrate and requested his 14-day remand in police custody for interrogation.

Alam said Hassan is required to be interrogated about the source of the allegedly recovered weed, arresting the co-accused, and completing other formalities, including checking his criminal record.

However, Hassan’s lawyer Faraz Faheem opposed the police plea for the physical remand of his client, contending that he had been implicated in a fake case, and requested the magistrate to send his client to jail on judicial remand.

The magistrate said the perusal of the record shows that serious allegations have been levelled against the accused in the police papers, including the FIR. He said it is clear that the sale of narcotics is increasing day by day but no proper investigation is being conducted to find the true source of supply.

The young generation is also using narcotics in different ways, such as smoking and chewing, which is the basic cause of ruining the youth, both males and females, he added. The magistrate said the case is at a premature stage, as even 24 hours have not completed since the suspect’s arrest. He said that after careful consideration of the record, the investigating officer’s plea for police remand seems cogent.

He then remanded the accused in police custody for one day, and directed the IO to produce him with complete progress report and case diaries. An FIR was lodged under sections 6 and 9-3(b) of the Sindh Control of Narcotic Substances Act, 2024, on behalf of the state through the SIU’s Inspector Aftab Abbasi.

According to the FIR, Abbasi said he was out on patrol with a police party when he received information that a drug dealer who supplied drugs in the posh areas of Karachi was present in Street No. 6, Khayaban-e-Rahat, DHA Phase-VI, to deliver a drug parcel.

He said that acting on this tip-off, he, his team and their informant reached the mentioned location and caught a person with a black hand-carry bag hanging on his shoulder. Upon questioning, the man identified himself as Syed Sahir Hassan, he added.

The inspector said that during a search of the bag, five packets of weed (ganja) were found. He said that the total weight of the recovered weed was found to be 557g. During the initial interrogation, the suspect revealed that he procures the drugs from drug dealers named Bazil and Yahya, and sells them in posh areas, he added.

Police had earlier claimed that they had arrested Hassan in connection with a crackdown launched on drug peddlers following the arrest of Armaghan in the Mustafa Amir kidnapping and murder case.