Ludhiana: A special court here has sentenced a local resident to five years of rigorous imprisonment under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act for possessing 600 intoxicant tablets containing alprazolam.Special court judge Dr Rajneesh also imposed a fine of Rs 50,000 on the convict, Rahul alias Bhambhola, a resident of Daulat Colony. In default of paying the fine, he will undergo an additional six months of rigorous imprisonment.While pronouncing the quantum of sentence, the court took a stern view of narcotics trafficking. “Nowadays drug menace has become social malady and it has attained monstrous proportion and it is tearing families apart. Sale and consumption of narcotics in an illegal manner is immensely affecting the society,” the court remarked.“Its addiction destroys the trait of appreciation of a person, who cannot differentiate between fair and unfair and commits the heinous crime, resulting into day by day increase of tendency of committing the heinous crime with the addiction of drugs. The need of the hour is to choke the supply of the drugs and to curb it with heavy hands,” the order added.According to the prosecution, a Division Number 4 police team was on routine patrolling at Puli Bajwa Nagar on May 29, 2018, when they spotted Rahul carrying a backpack. Upon noticing the police, he grew nervous and tried to turn back, prompting the team to apprehend him.A search of his bag yielded 12 strips of alprazolam tablets—each containing 50 tablets, totalling 600 tablets—along with 10 mobile phones. A chemical examiner’s report later confirmed the total weight of the contraband to be 90.3 grams.Following his arrest and the filing of a chargesheet, Rahul pleaded false implication during the trial, though he opted not to present any defence evidence. His counsel argued that nothing was recovered from him and that police had planted the case.Rejecting the defence’s claims, the court noted that no enmity or motive on the part of the police officials had been alleged or proved, adding that the accused could have approached higher authorities had he been falsely implicated. “Therefore, the contention of false implication raised on behalf of the accused falls like a house of cards,” the court held, concluding that the prosecution had established conscious possession of the contraband without a licence or permit.
