Anmol Pinky: from aspiring model to ‘drug baroness’
Why this matters: local context for readers following news across Pakistan and the region.
Anmol, alias Pinky.—Courtesy Karachi police • She is accused of selling narcotics worth millions of rupees daily, yet she doesn’t have a bank account• Police say she operates benami accounts and SIMs illegally issued under others’ names KARACHI: Despite being on the law enforcement agencies’ radar for years, 31-year-old aspiring model-turned-drug ‘queenpin’ Anmol Pinky operated her nationwide network from Lahore and Karachi with impunity for years. She, along with her brothers and other accomplices, had built a network that used WhatsApp and social media to supply narcotics, particularly cocaine, to their clients in upscale areas. Since she was already booked in multiple criminal cases prior to her recent arrest by a team of Karachi police and a civilian intelligence agency, the police had her Computerised National Identity Card (CNIC) blocked. But this did not stop her from doing business as she used ‘benami’ accounts and SIMs issued under someone else’s names to stay in touch with her network and customers. Her purported voice notes, widely circulated on social media, suggested that she was not afraid of law enforcement as she was heard challenging them to arrest her, claiming her network would continue even after her arrest or death. Officials familiar with her interrogation said she lived with her mother and sister-in-law in Lahore’s Khayaban-i-Zafar Society. In Karachi, she had a residence in Gulshan-i-Iqbal and a family home in Baloch Para, Jahangir Road. She belonged to a family of modest means. Her father, Murad Bakhsh, a Kolachi Baloch, was a taxi driver by profession, while her mother originally hailed from Punjab. She left her studies when she was in eighth grade and moved to Lahore to pursue a modelling career. During her struggling days, she frequented the office of a film director to get acting or modelling gigs, where she met her first husband, who was a lawyer by profession. It was her first husband and brothers who brought her into the world of crim