Srinagar: On 12 September 2021, police in Jammu & Kashmir (J&K) stopped a truck travelling from Udhampur to Samba.

Police said the truck carried 26 plastic bags containing what appeared to be poppy straw, totalling 595 kg. Police arrested the driver, Arif Ahmed Parray, and the truck's “conductor of the truck”, Shabbir Ahmed.

A third man, the owner of the truck, Irfan Rasheed Rather, was arrested five months later, on 3 February, and accused of conspiring to load the contraband into the truck and send it to Punjab, according to the police.

The case was registered under sections 8, 15 and 29 of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act (NDPS), 1985.

Section 8 prohibits the cultivation of coca, opium, or cannabis plants, as well as the handling of any narcotic drugs or psychotropic substances. Section 15 prescribes penalties for unauthorised activities involving poppy straw, with punishments varying according to the quantity seized, ranging from imprisonment of up to one year for small quantities to 10–20 years for commercial quantities. Section 29 punishes abetment and criminal conspiracy related to offences under the Act.Almost five years later, the case ended without a conviction.

On 22 July 2026, additional sessions judge Arvind Sharma in Samba acquitted all three men, holding that the State had failed to prove any narcotics had been recovered from the accused. 

The judgement found discrepancies in the prosecution evidence, questioned the preparation of seizure documents—formal records of seized substances—held that the chain of custody of the evidence was not proved, and found that the alleged conspiracy to transport drugs to Punjab was not established.

The judges said, “All these faults and lapses point towards that the investigation of the case has not been conducted fairly and genuinely, resulting in great miscarriage of justice.” 

The judge said a fair trial begins with a fair investigation: 

“The IO has miserably failed to conduct the investigation honestly and unbiased, causing great prejudice to the accused.”

For Parray and Ahmed, who were still in custody as undertrials when the judgment was delivered, the order meant freedom. 

Ahmed applied for bail three times on medical grounds due to gallbladder stones and lack of proper treatment; the first two applications were rejected, while the third remained pending.

A Pattern Of Frivolous Cases

Article 14 has previously reported on a narco-terrorism case involving both the NDPS Act and the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), 1967—a “narco terrorism” case—in which a Kashmiri man was granted bail after six years, with the Supreme Court questioning the credibility of the evidence against him, which appeared to have been fabricated.

In a separate series on the use of the UAPA in Karnataka, Article 14 found that over a 20-year period, charges were dropped in 37.33% of cases before they reached trial, while acquittals outnumbered convictions by five to one.

These cases raise troubling questions about the quality of investigations and prosecutions under stringent laws, and the devastating consequences for people who spend years facing charges that ultimately fail to stand up in court.

The case comes as Jammu and Kashmir has expanded its campaign against narcotics.

The latest NCRB data published by the Ministry of Home Affairs shows that J&K registered 1,173 NDPS cases in 2019, 1,222 in 2020, 1,681 in 2021, 1,837 in 2022, 2,232 in 2023, and 1,550 in 2024, a 32% increase.

Data from multiple government sources, including NCRB, and replies to Parliament by the ministry of home affairs, totalled 13 in 2020, 17 in 2021,  99 in 2022, 195 in 2023, and 227 in 2024, a 1,646% increase.

J&K, however, is not India’s largest jurisdiction by the absolute number of NDPS cases. 

In 2023, Kerala registered 30,697 cases, a 232% increase from 2019 to 2023. Maharashtra registered 15,610 cases, a 10.3% increase, and Punjab 11,589, a 0.5% increase.

The picture becomes more striking when UAPA prosecutions are considered.

According to NCRB data provided by the home ministry, J&K registered 287 UAPA cases in 2020, 289 in 2021 and 371 in 2022.

Across those three years, J&K accounted for 947 of 2,615 UAPA cases registered nationally, about 36%. It recorded the highest number each year among states and union Territories. 

There is also a distinct category of cases described by security agencies as narco-terrorism.

An Observer Research Foundation analysis citing J&K police data recorded 26 narco-terrorism cases in J&K in 2022-23, involving 49 arrests.

The Kashmir zone recorded 15 cases, and Jammu 11. 

Police had filed chargesheets in 15 of the cases, according to the analysis.

Advocate Zahoor Ahmed Khan, who later took over Ahmed's defence without charging a fee, said  Ahmed’s father died while he was in custody and was not allowed to pay his father’s last rites. His marriage broke down. He developed gallbladder problems requiring surgery. 

Khan said the trial court directed jail authorities to arrange treatment at GMC Kathua, but “no such medical treatment was provided.”

“When I was approached, Shabbir’s widow's mother, an old ailing woman, was the only person surviving in his family,” said Khan.

Ahmed declined to speak to us.

Ahmed’s family had already sold their valuables to pay the previous counsel more than 2 lakh rupees, Khan said.

When Khan was approached about Ahmed’s case, he said he took the case for free “on humanitarian grounds”. 

This reporter tried to reach the senior superintendent of police, Samba, via email. We will update the story if and when we receive a reply.

Basic Procedures Not Followed

According to the police, an assistant sub-inspector and other personnel were deployed for naka (checkpost) duty at Mansar.

At about 2:30 p.m. on 12 September 2021, the driver and helper could not satisfactorily explain why they allegedly transported 595 kg of poppy straw.

Police said they drew 200-gram samples from all 26 bags, producing 52 exhibits, which an Executive Magistrate sealed and later resealed before sending them to the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) in Jammu.

The FSL report detected morphine and identified the material as poppy straw.

But the prosecution’s difficulty was not simply proving what the substance was, but how it was recovered, documented, sealed, and preserved.

The court focused on contradictions between witnesses.

The head of the naka party testified that the investigating officer came to the spot after the FIR was registered and that the investigation, including preparing seizure documents and taking samples, was carried out there in the presence of the executive magistrate, the judgment notes.

But the investigating officer said that when he called the executive magistrate, the magistrate was not available to accompany him to the spot.

The judge said this created suspicion about the prosecution’s version.

The head of the naka party testified that the investigating officer prepared and signed the seizure memo at the spot. He specifically denied that it had been prepared at the police station.

He also said the investigating officer had no computer or laptop at the time, yet the court noted that the seizure memo on the file was a computerised document.

“The mandatory and procedural provisions were violated, and were tried to be covered up in the chargesheet. But the witness depositions revealed the truth,” said Khan.

One prosecution witness said a weighing machine, or kanda, was taken from his shop at about 10 a.m. by the investigating officer to weigh the drugs, but the prosecution placed the truck's interception at about 2:30 p.m.

The judge said this meant either the police had prior information about the occurrence or that the time of occurrence recorded in the case was wrong.

“In both the situations,” the judge said, “it creates a serious doubt in the prosecution’s case.”

The court therefore said there was a suspicion that the case “may be of prior information and not a chance recovery.”

Where Did The 595 Kg Go?

The second major problem concerned the chain of custody.

The prosecution had to establish that the material tested by the FSL was the same material allegedly seized from the accused and that it remained secure in police custody.

The executive magistrate, who, according to the police, resealed the exhibits, admitted during cross-examination that the investigating officer had not produced the seal or seal impression before him. 

He said the alleged contraband bore no seal or malkhana (storehouse inside a police station) number when it was produced before him.

The magistrate also said no inventory was produced showing what was recovered, when the samples were drawn, their quantity or quality, and how they were packed.

The investigating officer produced no Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL) form, FIR, seizure memo, photographic evidence, or authentication certificate.

The judge described the absence of the CFSL form in the challan, which discloses the seal impression used at the initial seizure, as fatal to the investigation in light of the law discussed in the judgment.

The court ultimately held that the possibility of tampering with the seized narcotics before they reached the FSL could not be conclusively ruled out.

It found “complete violation” of Sections 50, 52-A and 55 of the NDPS Act by the investigating officer.

Section 50 requires the authorised officer to inform the suspect of their right to be searched before a Gazetted Officer or Magistrate. Section 52-A governs the inventory, sampling, certification, and disposal of seized substances and conveyances. Section 55 governs the custody and sealing of seized contraband by police stations.

The court concluded: “Hence the chain of custody of narcotics seized stands not proved.”

Prosecution Witness Says Made To Sign

The chargesheet alleged that Rather, the owner of the truck, had loaded the poppy straw into the vehicle with the help of the other two men and handed the truck over to them for transporting the contraband to Punjab.

Relying on call-detail records and tower locations, police alleged in the chargesheet that Parray and Rather were in frequent contact and were at the same location in south Kashmir’s Anantnag around the time police said the truck was loaded.

The chargesheet said the investigation established the conspiracy.

But the investigation had not established who physically loaded the alleged contraband, where it was loaded, or where and to whom it was supposed to be delivered.

A prosecution witness said he had signed the document at the investigating officer’s instance without reading it. He also said the disclosure had been recorded in question-and-answer form and that he had not seen the document in the court file.

A disclosure statement attributed to the accused did not mention where, when, or on what date it was made. 

Most importantly, the prosecution made no recovery pursuant to the disclosure.

(Haseeb Ibn Hameed is an independent journalist and the former senior sub-editor of Greater Kashmir, an English daily.)

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