The special NDPS court has awarded a 10-year sentence to an African woman caught at Mumbai airport with 14.96 kg of methaqualone worth Rs 7.48 crore in January 2014. A fine of Rs 1 lakh was also imposed on Ngona Joyce, 50, who claimed that she was entrusted by her cousin to transport the bag containing the drugs to Botswana. She added that she had no prior knowledge of the bag’s contents and that she didn’t even check it as her cousin has asked not to do so.
As per the prosecution, Joyce was caught on January 22, 2014, after the airport security got suspicious owing to the sniffer dog’s behaviour towards her. The frisking of her baggage led to the discovery of 47 Zari lace rolls, with each concealing a cardboard packet filled with white crystalline powder, the prosecution added. The preliminary test revealed the powder was methaqualone.
Upon questioning, the accused had said that the locked bag had been handed to her by her cousin in Delhi along with specific instructions to deliver it to a contact in Gaborone, Botswana. She claimed that she was not offered any remuneration for transporting the bag.
The prosecution said that the investigation corroborated several elements of her statement, including her travel itinerary, hotel stays in Mumbai and Delhi and her interactions with her cousin. However, attempts to trace the alleged accomplices, including her cousin and other contacts, proved inconclusive. Besides, Joyce later retracted her statement, alleging coercion and denial of due process. Pronouncing her guilty based on the prosecution evidence, the court said that the accused indeed possessed the drugs and also intended to smuggle it.
Seeking leniency, Joyce pleaded that she has been suffering since the registration of the crime as she has to stay away from her family. She submitted that her parents are old and her brother died during Covid when she was under detention in India. The accused urged the court to award a minimum sentence, enabling her to return to her native as her children are in an orphanage.
The court, however, refused to show leniency, observing that, “Except the fact that the family members of the accused are at her native place and her children are at orphanage, there is no mitigating circumstance. While awarding the maximum punishment, the judge said, “As the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act expects imposition of stringent punishment, it would not be just to show leniency to the accused found with a huge quantity of the drugs.”
