Don’t consider bail after six months to be justice, says Sanaullah

The News/FilesFAISALABAD: Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Rana Sanaullah said Thursday he did not consider being released on bail after six months in detention over a fake case to be justice.

In a press conference here in the city, the former Punjab law minister — who was released earlier today after the Lahore High Court (LHC) granted him bail — said: “With Allah as my witness, I want to state categorically that I never used heroin.”

Sanaullah said he had suffered over the past six months due to the false narcotics-smuggling case against him and that  he had not been provided justice.  Speaking of the trauma he endured due to being incarcerated, the PML-N leader demanded relevant authorities take action against the injustices.

The Anti-Narcotics Force (ANF), he added, had secured 15 kilogrammes worth of heroin from a go-down and produced false witnesses to back up its allegations against him. “If it was such a large network, why weren’t others [involved in drug trafficking] arrested?” he asked.

“I used to stand 100 percent with my party before. Now, I stand with them 1,000 percent,” he added, saying he had maintained since the first days that the case against him had been concocted.

Sanaullah said he would repeat the same words on the floor of the parliament.

The ANF had arrested the former minister on July 1 from Faisalabad while he was en route to a meeting, claiming that he was in possession of 15kg of heroin when he was arrested.

The LHC, earlier today, had released its detailed verdict in the case, raising questions on the way the probe had been conducted. The court questioned the judgement, asking why the ANF never sought the former provincial minister’s physical remand to investigate the allegation despite the fact that he was accused of operating a narcotics trafficking network.

The court had also questioned why formal documentary proceedings of seizing the narcotics were not conducted at the time of arrest and why a sample of only 20 grams of the recovered heroin was sent for testing when the seized quantity was a much more than 15kg.

The judgement also gave some weight to the ‘political victimisation’ argument made by Sanaullah. 

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