Jerian Maruyoma was a Japanese boy scout in his early teens. In 1982 he had! a chance meeting with President ZiaulHaq’s at a national jamboree in Pakistan, He got an autograph of the Pakistan President and a certificate as so many other boys did, There was also a photograph of his taken with Zia a photograph that proved ‘invaluable and changed the course of his life and career.
The boy was picked up by the drug mafia as a corner of heroin across three continents. A BBC video cassette gives a graphic account of the exploits of notorious drug mafia operating from Lahore and Karachi with worldwide ramifications and the role of Maruyoma who was later arrested by the Norwegian police. It traces the links of the mafia gang right up to the door step of the late President of Pakistan; Banned during the military regime, the cassette was shown on Pakistan Television (PTV) in April 1989 four months after Benazir Bhutto first became Prime Minister of the Islamic republic.
The alleged revelations of Yakub Memon (recently arrested in connection with the Bombay blasts) of the links between Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (IS!) and the mafia gangs had, in fact, their origin in the latter part of the Tong military regime during which dug money played havoc with the country’s economy, creating an illusion of prosperity. The situation has hardly improved since. In fact it has worsened sharply with an increasing number of prominent politicians of rival parties sucked into it, For the lure of its use in their toppling games, causing political upheavals with successive elected governments in the past few years, “Meherangate “‘and * Khybergate” scandals are their most recent manifestations, while underworld dons like Taufik Siddiqui turned his attention to India in conjunction with ISI designs. It is instructive to see what happened in the eighties, according to well documented international investigations and articles by noted western correspondents published even in the Pakistani press. Maruyoma, the chubby looking. Japanese Boy Scout tells Peter Taylorina BBC film how he was lured into drug trafficking, and the ease with which he could walk with a familiar black handbag full of brown sugar across customs barriers at various airports, “Nobody could touch me or my bag… I could get anything I wanted illegally”. Why? “Because the military government had power, everybody is scared of it. Iris almost likes (God) Almighty…” Manyoma claimed.
He reveals how his desire to become a doctor was fulfilled when a “fake medical diploma’? Of Lahore University was “bought’” for $ 5000 and a clinic was set up on Tariq Road in Karachi for him 10 “practice as a pediatrician”. It led to a startling episode, “In Lahore the President’s secretary met me. I do not know how he knew my name. He asked me to examine the President’s daughter who suffers from brain damage.”
“How a Japanese boy scout ‘and bogus doctor came to examine the President’s daughter has never been satisfactorily explained”, exclaims Peter Taylor, the reporter who made the film with cameramen David Gray and Michael Haynes.
Assault ‘Their camera was snatched and its film destroyed when, as indicated to them by Manyoma, Taylor and his team reached the Shadow” behind the mafia gang, Haji Mirza Mohammad Iqbal Beig, a cinema owner in Lahore. Beig brazenly denied his involvement in a case relating to the seizure of 17.5 tunes of hash, “the world’s biggest seizure”, made by the Karachi coast guard, although his name topped the charge sheet ‘among the “absconders” as Iqbal alias Bala of Lahore and was known to western investigating agencies as the most significant source of heroin supply in Pakistan. Beig denied his arrest in connection with a 1973 opium smuggling case. However, as soon as the team came out of Baig’s office, his men followed and attacked them, ripped their clothes, and snatched the camera and the film. It happened right in front of a police station but the police refused to intervene despite appeals for help. ‘They were, however, able to record their conversation with Beig on the radio microphone concealed in his bag by film record is Freddie Downtown. The entire scene of their encounter with the mafia chief has been reconstructed in the video cassette, Maruyoma describes Beig as a “specialist in violence”, the “big shadow” behind the powerful mafia organization, “Nobody can cut that shadow, and nobody can touch Beig”. Why? “Because he has power, influence and money”, Manyoma asserts in his Japanese accented English. He says it is “impossible” that Beig would ever be jailed, He was never taken to meet Beig but he names two other persons from whom he took “orders’ Sohail) Ahmed and Tariq Butt, the latter “a funny person” ‘who would do anything to make money, including “smuggling of people”, ‘The chief of Pakistan’s Narcotic Control Board, Mr Dilshah Najmuddin, stated that 40 prominent mafia gang leaders had been “targeted” and/eight of them were actually arrested. That was not a bad figure; in fact, it was a good record “even by international standards”, he claimed. Asked if they included Haji Mirza Mohammad Iqbal Beig, the PNCB chief parried the question, tongue in cheek. ‘T will have to consult the list, “he said. Chuk Gutensohn of the US. Drug Enforcement Agency in Pakistan, told Taylor he had a “pretty good idea” of the prominent people involved in the drug racket but he politely declined to say if Beig was among them.
President ZiaulHaq’s loudly proclaimed that those guilty of drug trafficking should be shown no mercy and stringent punishment must be given under Islamic laws.
And accordingly a truck driver, Mukarram Khan, who was caught carrying 4000 kg of hashish, was flogged with 15 lashes besides three years in jail. But the men behind the racket, the real culprits, were never apprehended and punished.
The quantum of profits involved far outweighed the quantum of punishment under Islamic or any other law. The then prevailing price of one kilogram of heroin was £2,000Britishin Peshawar, £4,000 in Lahore; £8,000 in Karachi and £80,000 in Britain, An equivalent ‘of about Rs 3.5 crore, Likewise, cultivation of poppy, the “richest weed in the world” and the main source of the drugs, yields £800 British (about Rs 36,000) from half an acre as against a mere £30 (about Rs 1350), from cultivation ‘of wheat on the same area. Payments are usually made through the traditional “hundi” system and ‘Occasionally through commercial banks, It is a multi-kilo heroin and multi tun hashish trade involving tens of millions of hard currency. The shady transactions usually originated from an obscure “Libya Restaurant” in Peshawar, according to the BBC film.
Iqbal Baig’s organization’s awe some network of communications and contacts was worldwide touching Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Egypt, India, Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand, Spain, Greece, Sweden, and UK and USA besides, of course, Karachi, Lahore, Peshawar, and Landikot on the Afghan border in the historic Khyber range, it notes.
‘The drug racket has not left Pakistani youths unaffected by addiction. The number of addicts is estimated at around half a million, about 5000 of them either in jail or dead diction centers. One reason for so many youths getting attracted to heroin and hashish, according to many observers in Pakistan is the total prohibition on alcoholic drinks enacted in the days of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and enforced vigorously in the Zia regime, though its blatant breach is also not uncommon. The authorities, entrusted with the en force men of anti-drug laws, are said to be doing their best against heavy odds. A quarter of the staff employed are afraid of personal risks involved in doing an honest job or are tempted by attractive bribes offered for not doing it. In the mid-eighties, seized and sealed packets totalling ‘of 500 kg of heroin were burnt down in Peshawar. Estimated to cost £40 million, it went up in smoke. Pakistani narcotics officials are painfully aware that they are fighting a losing battle while the likes of Iqbal Beig, Dawood Ibrahim, Tiger Memon and Taufik’ Siddiqui Jaliawala are constantly Winning the war. Poppy and heroin buy Kalashnikovs and bombs for Smuggling across the border in accordance with the designs of ISI. During Benazir Butto’s first stint in office as Prime Minister, there were brief reports that Beig was apprehended following her brave declarations that mafia gangs would be crushed. But not much was heard of subsequent developments or punishment. As for Benazir’s current term as her country’s chief executive, if ZiaulHaq’s was a sleeping Parmer she may prove to be drug mafia’s prisoner through its proxy. The ISI TAILPIECE A British enjoy had a ’stunning experience when he went to a wealthy tribal chieftain to dissuade him from growing opium and trafficking in hashish and heroin because of the devastation it was causing. In western societies, no table British and American according to Rahmat Ullah Yusufzai, a prominent Pakistani journalist.
The tribal chief flatly refused to oblige. Why? Asked the suave diplomat. ~ Because that is the only way we can avenge the long British domination of this subcontinent. We cannot drop atom bombs on London or New York but we can certainly destroy your youth with our drugs”.
The nonplussed diplomat beat a hasty retreat. Mr V.T. Joshi was in Pakistan for many years as the ‘Special Correspondent of The Times of India.
Article extracted from this publication >> November 25, 1994
