Mumbai's first death penalty in a drug case

Gulamali Mallick on Wednesday became the first person in the city to be sentenced to death in a drug smuggling case. He was convicted twice for having more than 20kg (commercial quantity) of hashish.

While several countries have strict anti-narcotics laws, with capital punishment for even having drugs; in India, a second conviction under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act attracts the death penalty.

Narcotic Control Bureau records say Mallick of Gulmarg in J&K had in 2002 off-loaded part of a truckload of hashish (142 kg) on the Mumbai-Ahmedabad highway and 160kg in a godown at Jogeshwari.

In 2005, a Surat court sentenced him to 10 years in jail. In December 2007, Mallick was once again held guilty by a Mumbai court. The court did not pronounce his sentence in December as it wanted to look at the Gujarat case papers.

But Mallick’s lawyer said, “Mallick was in custody serving his first sentence when he was tried by the Mumbai court. Both offences were committed in the course of one single transaction of transporting a truckload of hashish from Jammu to Gujarat/Maharashtra in 2002. The death provision therefore does not apply to him.”

The special NCB prosecutor said, “The death penalty provision was enacted for a second and subsequent conviction. The law has qualified a second conviction.”