Karsaz traffic accident: Police file fresh case against driver under Hudood law

Karachi police on Friday filed a fresh case under the Hudood law against Natasha Danish — the driver booked in last week’s deadly Karsaz traffic accident that killed two and injured three people — days after police said that her medical report showed she was under the influence of methamphetamine (crystal meth).

On August 19, a speeding Toyota Land Cruiser, driven by Danish, hit three motorcycles and another car before overturning on the city’s Karsaz Road. Sixty-year-old Imran Arif and his 22-year-old daughter Amna were killed in the accident, while three others were wounded.

The driver was arrested and booked for manslaughter charges. In a court hearing on Aug 21, a counsel of the victim had called for a probe into the “kind of drug” that the suspect was allegedly under the influence of at the time of the accident.

Sindh Inspector General of Police Ghulam Nabi Memon on Wednesday said Danish’s medical report showed she was under the influence of crystal meth, although the report was not made public at the time.

Bahadurabad police Station House Officer Mohammed Naeem Rajput told Dawn.com today that a separate first information report (FIR) was registered against Danish under Section 11 (drinking liable to tazir) of the Prohibition (Enforcement of Hadd) Order (PEHO) of 1979.

Section 11 of the Hudood Order says those found guilty of drinking but not found liable for hadd punishment (those ordained by the Holy Quran or Sunnah) will instead be liable for tazir (any punishment other than hadd) and punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to three years or with whipping not exceeding thirty stripes or with both.

Rajput said the law was invoked after medical reports confirmed that Danish was under the influence of the drug.

Meanwhile, police surgeon Dr Summaiya Syed confirmed to Dawn.com today that Danish’s “chemical analysis report is positive for methamphetamine in the urine sample”.

Thus, she said, it was “confirmed that she (Danish) had methamphetamine in her system at the time [of the accident]”.

The FIR, a copy of which is available with Dawn.com, was filed at the Bahadurabad police station at the complaint of Sub-Inspector Rehan Ahmed.

The FIR said the Bahadurabad police had carried out a medical examination of the driver at the time of the accident and sealed samples of her urine and blood were sent to the chemical examiner’s office for an examination, with the subsequent report submitted to the police surgeon’s office.

It added that the police surgeon, in her final report dated August 29, said the suspect was under the influence of methamphetamine at the time of the accident around 6:30pm on Aug 19.

Therefore, the FIR said that after receiving the police surgeon’s final report, the senior police officers sent a letter for legal opinion and now the new case was filed under the Hudood law after receiving directions from the office of the deputy superintendent of police (legal) via the office of the East senior superintendent of police (investigation) dated Aug 30.

Meanwhile, the victims’ counsel Jibran Nasir said that crystal meth was a scheduled prohibited drug under the Control of Narcotics Substances Act 1997 and the consumption of a scheduled prohibited drug became an offence under the Control of Narcotics Substances Amendment Act 2022.

He further said that driving under the influence of a drug was a crime under Section 100 of the Provincial Motor Vehicle Ordinance 1965.

Nasir said he was unable to understand why the PEHO law was invoked since the scheduled drugs under the aforementioned law did not contain crystal meth and nor was there any notification or amendment that added the narcotic to the schedule.

He claimed that an offence could only be made out under the Hudood law if the drugs included in its scheduled list were consumed.