Official and son arrested for drug peddling in Pakistan

A police official along with his son from Khyber district were arrested for drug peddling, local media reported citing the police authorities, who also recovered 13 kilograms of heroin from their possession.

According to the Dawn newspaper, an official statement said that Mohammad Shuaib, serving as the Station House Officer of Mullagori police station in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan and his son Abidullah were trying to smuggle the contraband in a vehicle.

They were intercepted by the police near the Pir Zakori Flyover in Pakistan.

The police official was suspended from service after the incident and an enquiry has been ordered against him, the statement added.

Earlier, on Monday, another police official, Fazalur Rehman, serving in Agha Mir Jani police station of the provincial capital was arrested for peddling heroin to drug addicts across the city, the Dawn reported.

Police recovered about 300 packets of heroin from his possession.

According to an article in Islam Khabar, Afghanistan is the prime source of opium supply to the world drug markets and Pakistan is the transport hub with drug networks operating from the country using its drug routes to reach international markets.

The geographical location of Pakistan makes it one of the prominent drug transit points along the Southern route. Pakistan is also depending on the narcotic trade for sponsoring terror in India, the article said.

Pakistan shares 2400 kilometres of border with Afghanistan, which is largely porous. And this has served as a transit corridor for drug traffickers. Forty per cent of Afghan drugs transit Pakistan before they reach the international markets.

Tonnes of opiates and meth are trafficked from Afghanistan to the Torkham border crossing, Ghulam Khan in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, from where they are sent to Lahore and Faisalabad, reassembled into huge consignments, the article said.

Then they are transported to Karachi and Gwadar, and fishing vessels in Makran coast are used for drugs transport to the South Asian markets. Balochistan has also been an important drug transit route in Pakistan.

The article said Meth is easily available to college students in Pakistan and there are close to 27 million drug users in Pakistan, according to the country's anti-narcotics force. The spillover effect of the Afghanistan-Pakistan drug trade is felt in the other countries in the region.