KARACHI, Sept 11: The special court for control of narcotic substances on Thursday awarded four-year imprisonment each to two personnel of the Airport Security Force (ASF) in a drug smuggling case.
The court found Mohammad Rafiq Chaudhry and Naveed Ahmed Raja guilty of assisting a drug pusher to smuggle 1,200 grams of heroin abroad.
Judge Imdad Hussain Khoso of the special CNS court-I pronounced the judgment after recording the final arguments from both sides.
The court also imposed a fine of Rs50,000 each. In case of non-payment, the accused would have to undergo an additional three-month imprisonment each.
According to the prosecution, the Anti-Narcotics Force had arrested the two employees of the ASF, Mohammad Rafiq Chaudhry and Naveed Ahmed Raja, on July 27, 2006 at the Karachi airport for allegedly helping a drug peddler to smuggle drugs abroad and seized 600 grams heroin each from them while the drug peddlers escaped.
The prosecution produced four witnesses in court.
The judge in his verdict observed that the prosecution had successfully proved its case against the accused by producing ample evidence and witnesses in court.
In the final arguments, special public prosecutors Mohammad Arif Sitai and Abida Channar said the prosecution had successfully proved the case against the accused by producing ample evidence, which had confirmed the involvement of the accused in the case.
They pleaded for the award of capital punishment to the accused.
The defence counsel told the court that his clients were innocent and falsely implicated in the case, and requested the court to acquit them.
A case (FIR 28/06) was registered against the accused under Section 6/9-C of the Control of Narcotic Substances Act, 1997, at the Anti-Narcotics Force, Clifton.
Zardari murder attempt case
An additional district and sessions court on Thursday issued for a seventh time non-bailable warrants for the arrest of former National Accountability Bureau chairman Saifur Rehman Khan, his brother Mujibur Rehman Khan, former inspector-general of police Rana Maqbool, former deputy inspector-general of police Farooq Amin Qureshi and former superintendent of the central prison Najaf Mirza in a case pertaining to an attempt in 1999 on the life of Asif Ali Zardari, now the president of Pakistan and co-chairman of the PPP.
The judge, Irfan Hussain Siddiqui, directed the Sindh IG to arrest the accused and produce them before court till Sept 27 and said all the accused would be declared absconders if the police failed to produce them on the next hearing.
The last warrants were issued on Sept 6 and the judge had strictly ordered the IG to arrest the accused and produce them in court on Sept 11. However, DSP Sultan on behalf of the IG submitted a report on Thursday, stating that the warrants could not be executed as two of the accused were abroad and the remaining had gone underground, which caused difficulties for the police to trace them out and sought more time from the court.
Public prosecutor Abdul Maharoof also requested the court to give at least one more chance to the police, as, he argued, the police had conducted many raids in Hyderabad to trace out Najaf Mirza, but he had gone underground while Rana Maqbool was in Punjab and the police had sought the help of the home department of Punjab in this regard, adding that the remaining accused were staying abroad.
The judge accepting the plea directed the police to execute the warrants till Sept 29 and said in case of non-compliance of warrants the court would declare the accused as absconders.
The prosecution said the accused had “unlawfully” obtained the physical custody of Asif Ali Zardari from an anti-terrorism court on the night between May 15 and 16, 1999 and took him to the CIA Centre, where they tortured and forced him to record incriminatory statements.
Mr Zardari suffered injuries to his tongue and other parts of his body due to the torture while the police refused to register an FIR against the police officials, attributing the incident to Zardari’s bid to commit suicide instead, it added.
Bank robbery case
A civil judge and judicial magistrate, south, on Thursday rejected the bail applications of three suspects in a bank robbery case.
The police had arrested two security guards deployed at the bank, Chindar Wali and Gul Hussain, and Noor Zali, father of another security guard Shah Mohammad who is stated to be the prime suspect in the case.
According to the prosecution, Shah Mohammad with his associates had looted cash, savings certificates and valuables worth millions of rupees by breaking into the lockers of the Habib Bank’s Mansfield Street branch in the limits of the Preedy police station by using gas-powered cutters in the small hours of Aug 15. Shah Mohammad had written a letter giving an eyewitness account of the crime before fleeing.
A case (FIR 574/08) was registered at the Preedy police station. Shah Mohammad is still at large.
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