Sargodha: (Parliament Times) Lincoln Corner (LCS) University of Sargodha (UoS) organized a seminar to control the production, processing and trafficking of narcotic drugs in which international scholars and social activist shared their research articles and suggestions for the drug prevention.
The seminar was arranged on the theme of optimizing Pakistan’s Drug Law with focus to catch kingpin of narcotics instead of drug carriers and to modify the death penalty for drug peddlers. International social activists and scholars, dean faculties of different departments of UoS and number of students from various discipline attended the seminar. A director of an international non-governmental organization ‘’Reprieve’’ Maya Foa British national presented her research study. She talked on optimizing Pakistan’s law and making the control of narcotics substance act 1997 stronger, fairer and more effective. She informed about the goal of her organization that we are “fighting for the victims of extreme human rights abuses with legal action and public education”. The main focus of the organization is on the death penalty and indefinite detention without trial, she added. Foa told the audience that after more than 133 case studies we attain that there is a need to enhance cooperation at international level for the provision of evidences against the Kingpins instead of intelligence sharing. No study in the world has proved that death penalty deterrent the value of crime, she further added. The president foundation for fundamental rights barrister Shahzad Akbar shared his views that according to a scientific collection of data from last 20 years of narcotics laws in Pakistan proved the high rate of drug usage. He said that there are different institutions to enforce laws and procedures for preventing drugs in Pakistan, but there is a need to improve their performance. He told after examining the various case studies which showed that 72 percent of arrested drug paddlers were have lowest income while on the other hand narcotics worth millions was detained from them. Speakers of the seminar demanded to modify the drug laws across the world including Pakistan. They recommended targeting kingpin traffickers with the combination of financial and custodian penalties along with improving the standard of justice in the CNSA courts by strengthening evidentiary standards. The participants showed their gratitude and appreciated the initiatives of UoS for organizing such event.
