KARACHI: A Karachi court on Friday acquitted Natasha Danish in a drug-related case stemming from the 2024 Karsaz Road accident, ruling that the prosecution had failed to establish the charge against her.
Judicial Magistrate (East) heard the case, in which Danish had been accused of driving under the influence of methamphetamine when her Toyota Land Cruiser struck several vehicles on August 19, 2024.
The crash on Karsaz Road killed 60-year-old Imran Arif and his 22-year-old daughter Amna and injured three other people. Danish was arrested at the scene and initially faced a murder case over the deaths.
A separate case was subsequently registered after a medical report was cited by police as indicating that Danish had been under the influence of crystal methamphetamine, commonly known as ice, while driving.
On Friday, however, the court found that the prosecution had not produced sufficient evidence to prove the drug charge and acquitted Danish.
Her lawyer, Fawad Ali Khichi, told reporters following the decision that chemical examinations and blood tests had not detected methamphetamine in his client’s samples. He also alleged that police had tampered with samples and that the investigating officer had concealed a blood test report. These allegations were made by the defence and were not established by the court in the account of Friday’s proceedings.
The case had been registered under Section 11 of the Prohibition (Enforcement of Hadd) Order, 1979, which deals with drinking liable to tazir.
The acquittal follows a lengthy series of proceedings arising from the Karsaz crash. Danish was granted bail in the murder case in September 2024 after the victims’ family pardoned her without accepting blood money.
A district and sessions court subsequently acquitted her in that case on October 31, 2024, after accepting a compromise between the parties.
The drug case continued separately. Danish initially failed to secure bail from both a judicial magistrate and a sessions court, before the Sindh High Court later granted her bail. The police had also filed a charge sheet against her in the case.
In May 2025, a judicial magistrate rejected an earlier application seeking her acquittal, allowing the proceedings to continue.
Friday’s ruling brings the separate drug prosecution arising from the Karsaz accident to an end at the trial-court level, nearly two years after the crash that killed the father and daughter.