Karachi court rejects bail pleas in Pinky drug case

KARACHI: A district and sessions court in Karachi on Monday rejected the bail applications of alleged facilitators in the Anmol alias Pinky drug case, holding that the material available at this stage was sufficient to link them to the matter on a prima facie basis.

In its reserved written order, the District South judge said the accused appeared, at the preliminary stage, to have acted as key facilitators for the main suspect, Pinky. The court said investigative material, including bank records and digital evidence, connected them to the alleged narcotics network.

The order further noted that under the Sindh Control of Narcotic Substances Act, helping in the manufacture of drugs or providing financial support for such activity is also an offence. It added that the record gathered during the investigation suggested that the applicants had served as aides to the principal accused and co-suspect Humaira.

The court also observed that a preliminary challan had already been filed in the case and said bail was not justified at this stage in light of the evidence placed before it.

Prosecution claims

According to the prosecution, co-accused Sohail-ur-Rehman and Zeeshan-ur-Rehman were involved in laundering proceeds allegedly generated through narcotics activity after Pinky’s own bank accounts had been frozen. Prosecutors said money was routed through different accounts and alleged that transactions were carried out through accused Sameer.

The prosecution further claimed that Sohail used accounts linked to Sameer and Zeeshan for property-related payments as well as for the purchase of raw materials. It also told the court that Pinky’s younger brother, Nasir, had been employed with Sameer since 2016, which it said strengthened the link among the accused persons.

Investigators also relied on forensic examination of mobile phones recovered from the main accused, saying the data pointed to the involvement of the co-accused. They further claimed that suspicious financial transactions had been detected in the bank accounts of the applicants and that money was transferred from those accounts to the main accused and other alleged associates.

Defence arguments

During the hearing, defence counsel Rehman Ghani Khattak Advocate argued that Sohail and Zeeshan had no connection with co-accused Sameer and described the allegations against them as old and unsubstantiated.

The defence also maintained that the applicants had not been named in the FIR and were implicated only later during the investigation. Police, however, told the court that the case had been registered at Garden police station and that evidence collected afterwards established the role of the applicants in the alleged network.