Police seek court approval to record Anmol Pinky’s voice samples

KARACHI: The investigation officer (IO) in a narcotics case has asked a judicial magistrate in Karachi to allow the recording of alleged drug baroness Anmol Pinky’s voice samples in prison, along with those of three co-accused, for forensic examination.

According to the application filed before a judicial magistrate (South), the request also covers Pinky’s alleged accomplices — Zeeshan-ur-Rehman, Sohail-ur-Rehman and Muhammad Sameer — who are currently lodged in prison on judicial remand in the same drugs case.

Pinky was arrested last month in two cases registered at the Garden police station relating to possession of narcotics and an unlicensed weapon. She had already been booked in several other criminal cases before this arrest.

After taking Pinky into custody, police also arrested the three men named in the court application. The IO told the court that the suspects’ mobile phones had been lawfully seized during the investigation and taken into possession as case property.

In the application, the IO said a preliminary examination of the phones had yielded critical incriminating evidence in the form of several audio recordings and voice messages allegedly exchanged between the suspects and outside operators.

The IO stated that investigators now need to establish the identities of the speakers in those recordings. For that purpose, he said, standard voice samples of all four accused are required so they can be matched through forensic analysis.

The application seeks court directions for prison authorities to provide investigators access to the accused for the lawful recording of their voice samples. The IO has also requested permission for the samples to be sent to the forensic science laboratory for voice-matching evaluation.

Case proceedings

The request has been moved by the Garden police station’s investigation officer as part of the ongoing probe in the narcotics case. The four accused remain in prison while the matter proceeds before the trial court.

The court is expected to decide whether jail authorities should be directed to facilitate the recording process and the subsequent dispatch of the samples for forensic testing.