As the CBI kicks off its probe into the Srinagar sex abuse scandal involving top J-K politicians, police and security officers—it was first reported by The Indian Express—Sabina, the 42-year-old kingpin, and a 15-year-old victim are now the focus of an investigation that is slowly unfolding a web of crime: of official patronage, of the initial probe being hushed up in October, 2004 because it threatened the then J-K coalition.

Sabina’s story begins from remote Ijhara village in Uri: a village girl who wanted to make it big in life and took the flesh trade as a short-cut. Sources said that she shifted to Srinagar and married Abdul Hameed Bhulla, a low-rung employee in the Health department in Haba Kadal locality of downtown city in 2000. Sabina had already developed contact with Riyaz Ahmad Langoo, a man who later became her closest associate in developing a well-knit sex abuse ring.

Initially, Sabina and her family lived in Chinkral mohalla in downtown city where she silently set up the flesh trade. Sources said that Sabina’s first contact with police and security agencies was through a number of sources and counter-insurgents who were introduced to her by Langoo. And thus started an era of official patronage for her activities. It first began with the local police station and the neighbourhood security force bunker. They were asked not to “harass” her. This encouraged her to weave a bigger web and soon she would supply girls, most of them teenagers, to police and security force officers and politicians.

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