Nigerians acquitted in narcotics case

A special Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) court has acquitted two Nigerians and another person, arrested for possession of contraband substance in 2004. It observed that the seized substance was not covered under the NDPS Act.

On October 28, 2004, the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) had arrested Ezeigwe Sunday John and Ezeilo Ejike Anthony at Mumbai’s international airport as they were to fly out to Lagos.
Search of their suitcases resulted in the recovery of 17,976 ampules of Fortwin injections, containing the narcotic substance Pentazocine, and 1033 empty cartons of Fortwin ampules.

According to the prosecution, the duo had purchased the substance from Pradeep Dhond for $1900.

However, the defence lawyer argued that the substance was in injection form and hence considered to be manufactured for scientific purposes. As such, it was exempted from the NDPS act.

While acquitting Dhond, the court accepted his argument that he never had the contraband. “Dhond received the consignment on October 27 from Bharat Cargo movers,” Dhond’s lawyer, Ayaz Khan, said.

“But there is no documentary evidence to prove this. Even the delivery boy of the movers told the court that he had not delivered any consignment to Dhond.”