LAHORE: The Lahore’s Defence-B police, acting on secret information, have arrested two suspects involved in the supply of narcotics, recovering 2 kilogrammes and 740 grammes of charas worth hundreds of thousands of rupees.
According to police, the arrested suspects have been identified as Sharif and Dawood Masih. DIG Operations Faisal Kamran said Defence-B police acted on secret information during a checking operation and arrested both suspects while they were supplying narcotics.
According to the SP Cantt, the suspects disclosed during preliminary investigation that they ordered narcotics online and supplied them in Lahore’s affluent localities.
Police say intelligence-based operations are continuing for the arrest of the suspects’ other associates. Cases have been registered against those arrested and they have been handed over to investigation police for further inquiry.
Separately, an organised narcotics network has come to light in the city, in which — according to police sources — weed and ice are allegedly being supplied from Islamabad to Lahore’s affluent localities.
According to police records, the name of a major dealer allegedly supplying weed and ice has emerged during investigation of cases registered against narcotics sellers.
Police sources say Ahmed, alias Pir Lala Khan, is a resident of the E-11 area of Islamabad and is allegedly among the major dealers supplying weed and ice in Lahore.
Sources say Ahmed alias Pir Lala Khan has been associated with the alleged narcotics supply business in Lahore for a long time, with alleged supply of weed and ice to high society in Defence, Gulberg, Model Town, Garden Town, Cavalry and other affluent areas.
According to police sources, the arrest of Ahmed alias Pir Lala Khan has so far not been carried out because of an alleged lack of coordination between the Islamabad and Lahore police.
Sources claim narcotics dealers have divided territories and cities among themselves, with different dealers making alleged supply in specific areas.
According to CCD police sources, just as the case of Pinky allegedly supplying narcotics to Karachi while sitting in Lahore came to light in the past, Ahmed alias Pir Lala Khan is allegedly supplying weed and ice to Lahore while based in Islamabad.
Police sources say further investigation into the matter is continuing, and that other individuals associated with the alleged narcotics supply network are also being identified.
The most consequential sentence in this file is the admission, attributed to police sources, that an identified suspect has not been arrested because of a coordination failure between two provincial and federal police forces.
That gap is structural, not accidental. Pakistan’s policing is provincially organised; Islamabad Capital Territory Police report to the federal Interior Ministry, and Punjab Police to the provincial government. An investigation that establishes a supplier’s identity in one jurisdiction and the distribution in another requires either a formal request between forces or the involvement of the Anti-Narcotics Force, which holds federal jurisdiction under the Control of Narcotic Substances Act 1997 precisely for cross-provincial trafficking.
That the ANF has not evidently been brought in — or that its involvement has not been disclosed — is the question this newspaper will put to both forces.
The second point concerns the two men arrested with charas. Interdicting street-level couriers is necessary work, but it is the most replaceable link in a supply chain. Networks of this kind absorb courier arrests as a cost of business. The named dealer, if the intelligence is sound, is the node whose removal disrupts supply.
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