Drug lord Arif Bhujwala sentenced to 15 years in NDPS case by Thane court

A special court under the Narcotic Drug and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act in Thane has sentenced alleged drug lord Mohammad Arif Bhujwala to 15 years of rigorous imprisonment in a narcotics trafficking case and directed him to surrender before authorities as he was out on bail during the trial.

Bhujwala, considered a close associate of Parvez alias Chinku Pathan — grandson of late underworld don Karim Lala — was arrested by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) in 2021 after a major drug bust at his hideout in Mangaon village of Maharashtra’s Raigad district.

According to the prosecution, the NCB acted on prior intelligence and conducted raids at multiple locations, recovering narcotic substances including heroin and MD from several accused persons. Investigators alleged that the accused were part of a larger drug trafficking network in which some peddlers sourced drugs from Bhujwala and further distributed them, while others assisted in financing and logistics.

The prosecution relied on seized contraband, witness testimonies, statements recorded under the NDPS Act, and forensic reports to establish the involvement of the accused.

The case involved 10 accused persons, out of whom five, including Bhujwala, were convicted, while the remaining five were acquitted due to lack of sufficient evidence.

One of the accused, Aun Haider, who was arrested alongside Bhujwala from the same premises, was acquitted by the court. Haider had earlier approached the Supreme Court seeking bail through advocate Ali Kaashif Khan Deshmukh. While rejecting his plea, the apex court had directed that the trial be concluded within three months.

In its judgment, the court observed that the prosecution had only partly succeeded in proving its case. It held that conscious possession of contraband was established against certain accused based on recoveries and control over the premises. However, the court rejected portions of the prosecution’s case where evidence was found insufficient, doubtful, or where recovered substances did not test positive during forensic examination.

The court consequently granted the benefit of doubt on several allegations while convicting only those accused against whom reliable evidence was available.

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