PPP leader held for ‘smuggling 11kg charas into Karachi’

Pakistan Peoples’ Party (PPP) leader Mohammad Ibrahim Soho from the Mirpur Bathoro town of District Sujawal, also an uncle of PPP MPA Heer Soho, has been arrested by Karachi’s Memon Goth police on charges of smuggling heavy quantity of charas.

Police said the PPP leader was arrested after the police found more than 11kg of charas from his car, adding that Soho was impersonating an advocate.

According to the police statement issued to the media and the contents of the FIR, the officials taking action on information received from a source arresting Soho from Kachcha Road, Chowkandi Graveyard, in the Memon Goth police jurisdiction.

They recovered 11.5kg of charas from his car, registration plate No. BAU-688, following which FIR No. 177/2022 was registered against him at the Memon Goth police station under sections 6 and 9(c) of the Control of Narcotic Substances Act.

District Malir police chief SSP Irfan Bahadur told The News that Soho had been involved in drug trafficking in the past and also been arrested many times with drugs.

He said the PPP leader is a notorious drug trafficker, adding that the police had arrested him red-handed while he was making his way into Karachi with a heavy quantity of charas.

The officer said Soho had also arrested by the Balochistan police near Hub a few years ago, adding that the officials had recovered a large quantity of charas from his car in which he was travelling with his wife.

PPP MPA Heer Soho issued a press statement soon after her uncle’s arrest. “I neither supported him in the past when he was arrested on the same charges nor will I help him now,” she said. She clarified that whenever he was arrested on charges of drug peddling, she never used her political clout for his release.

Ibrahim Soho had been a student leader and remained associated with the leftist Watan Dost Inqalabi Party. In the late 90s, he and his niece Heer joined the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), but he was expelled from the party when he was arrested with drugs. As an MQM member, Heer remained an MPA on a reserved seat for women. Soho and Heer later joined the PPP, with Soho becoming a leader in Mirpur Bathoro, while Heer again succeeding in becoming an MPA on a reserved seat for women.