Mohammad Jamil Khan

Accused in over half of the cases filed by Department of Narcotics Control (DNC) are acquitted due to flawed and incomplete investigation, improper presentation of cases at the trial court and weakness in prosecution, according to a report by the government agency.

In the annual report, five years’ average data between 2014 to 2018 shows that around 52.7 percent of completed narcotics cases ended in acquittal of the accused.

The situation in the first six months of 2019 was worse than the aggregate, with only 37 percent cases seeing conviction.

However, Mohammad Jamal Uddin Ahmed -- director general (DG) of DNC -- yesterday claimed that the situation has been improving in the last two years.

Addressing a briefing at DNC headquarters, Jamal Uddin said, “I feel no hesitation in disclosing that 40 percent of drug cases filed by our officials did not see conviction.”

DNC is providing capacity-building training to officials for the last two years so they do not make mistakes in filing cases, said the DG in response to a journalist’s question.

Between 2014 and June 2019, some

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