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Mumbai: The special NDPS court earlier this week acquitted five persons accused of trafficking Buprenorphine without bills in commercial quantities from New Delhi in April 2004, due to procedural lapses. The acquittal comes after the accused had already spent around 21 years in prison.

The five accused who are now acquitted are Mohammed Omar Mistry, Dharmendra Saroj, Atiq Ur Rehman, Uday Raj Yadav, and Siraj Panjwani.

As per the prosecution's case, on April 1, 2004, an officer of the customs department received specific information that Mistry was likely to transport four packages of large quantity of Buprenorphine ampoules to JJ Hospital.

Based on the information, the accused were arrested with four packages containing the drug, each package containing about 20,000 ampoules. The prosecution also claimed that Mistry did not have valid documents for transporting these drugs.

During questioning, Mistry said he collected the packets from an Angadia at Lamington Road, allegedly sent by Saroj via his nephew. Subsequently Mistry and Saroj were arrested. Further probe showed the goods were booked by Panjwani, who was in regular contact with Rehman, Yadav, and Pratap Singh. Singh had sourced the drugs from Yadav of UD Surgical & Pharmaceutical Company.

The trial in the case commenced on January 30, 2017. At the conclusion of the trial, the court found several procedural lapses. The court noted that when the officer received the specific information, he did not put it in writing or inform his superiors. Furthermore, the officers failed to maintain records of the storage and transportation of the contraband.

Additionally, the court noted that the officers had failed to follow proper procedures in seizing the drugs, which rendered the chemical analysis report of the samples unreliable. The court also observed that the prosecution failed to prove a connection between the other accused and the contraband seized from Mistry's possession.

Furthermore, the court noted that the location where Mistry was apprehended was close to JJ Marg police station. It remarked that the officers could have taken Mistry to the police station for the search, but instead took him to their office, creating doubts about the prosecution's case. Based on these findings, the court acquitted all accused after 21 years of imprisonment.