KARACHI: On the morning of April 7, Baghdadi police were alerted to a body on a footpath near a school in Lyari. Brown shirt, checked trousers, about 25 years old, no ID. Of note was a small tin sealed in golden foil that was found on his person. It said: ‘Queen Medam Pinky Don Naam hi kafi hai. Enjoy.
Police put the body down as ‘Unidentified Drug Addict’ in the roznamcha and dispatched it to a morgue. Around a month later, on May 9, they registered a murder case and nominated the name on the tin: Pinky. A forensic toxicology report confirmed their suspicion a few days later that it had traces of the A-class Schedule I narcotic, cocaine.
In the official telling, Pinky was taken into custody from a flat in Karachi’sGarden on May 12, 2026 by the Sindh Police and a federal intelligence agency.
Her arrest, according to one version of events, was based on a tip-off.
Pinky’s ex-husband had snitched on her to a sub-inspector in Karachi to tell him where she was hiding. The policeman, who cannot be named due to his current posting, was ecstatic he had been on Pinky’s case since 2019 and had even come close once.
She had been dodging arrest for eight years and was thus well known to the Lahore and Karachi police, CounterTerrorism Department and Anti-Narcotics Force as a most-wanted criminal in 28 cases involving narcotics, illegal arms and violent crimes.
When she was presented at the Judicial Complex inside Central Prison Karachi on May 17, she challenged this version of the arrest loud and clear. As she was dragged into a police van restrained by a clutch of women police officers who struggled to cover her face with a white chador she shouted: ‘These people picked me up from Lahore and brought me here 22 days ago! Cocaine is an elite drug because of who can afford to keep using it. It’s the people with the house with a garage and an eight-million-rupee car parked in the driveway.
That is the point, said Ustad, a userturned-police informer. Age isn’t a consideration. Customers can range from 14 to 65 years old.
Pinky’s delivery network was pulling in the clients, but it was also putting her on the police radar. Deliveries to Karachi were organised through people she hired, mostly women, who travelled there by bus, with the cocaine concealed in small packages in their clothes and luggage. Bus staff helped couriers conceal the drugs under the seats or inside luggage compartments.
Altogether, one kilogramme was dispatched a week.
The sub-inspector who would go on to arrest her seven years later, first came across her name in 2019, while he was posted to DHA Karachi and told to look into the area’s drug problem.
All he had back then was the nickname and a number. So they pulled the call detail record and ran the most frequent numbers through TrueCaller. Then they picked one number that barely showed up.
‘Sab se ghareeb admi,’ the SI told Dawn.
That would have been the poorest customer. They called him and said a complaint had been filed. In exchange forimmunity, he agreed to score two grams of cocaineforthe cops.
After two days of dillydallying, the delivery was finally made. A man and woman showed up on a motorcycle, both of whom were pulled in. But their lips were sealed and eventually they had to be released. It was the second time round that the rider sang. His shift ran from 8pm to 2am for Rs70,000 a month. A single packet weighed 12g, worth about Rs300,000. At the time he was caught, he had already soldfour.
The police told him to keep working and shadowed him on their motorcycles. The next pickup point was Gulshan-i-Iqbal, but 15 minutes later, it was changed to a french fries kiosk in Landhi. A man and woman came on a motorcycle again. The man was arrested and later identified as Shaukat, a brother of Pinky.
That’s when Pinky entered the picture.
‘She tried to negotiate her brother’s release,’ the sub-inspector said. ‘Her final offer was Rs900,000 with the condition: brother first, then the money.’ The police declined and locked Shaukat up, but he would be out soon enough.
After that, ‘Pinky had figured out the tricks of the trade,’ said the sub-inspector.Her riders multiplied and the drop points evolved. The tins were no longer handed over in person but tucked under a dustbin inside an ATM.
Pinky was born Anmol in Gwadar in 1995 and was raised in Karachi. She dropped out of school in the eighth grade and set off to Lahore with dreams of becoming an actress. Several failed auditions later, she met Rana Nasir and eventually married him. Soon, she began transporting drugs for him, and ultimately climbed the ladder to become his manager. They divorced 10 years later.
It was a name she had chosen as a teenager, one for the world of modelling and elite parties. ‘The name has glamour,’ the police officer said. ‘If it was Gulbano, Nuzhat or Fatima, people would not be as interested. [Pinky] is not easily forgettable.’ Even after she moved to Lahore, her customers continued to find her.
The truth is that there are players far grander than Pinky, who operate quietly, produce more but rarely become the story themselves. Pinky did the opposite. Her name did the rest.
A detailed version of this article can be accessed on Dawn.com