After PDP leader Muzaffar Beigh alleged that Chief Minister Omar Abdullah — and his father Farooq Abdullah — figure in a “list of suspects” in the 2006 Srinagar sex abuse scandal, he claimed this list surfaced during the CBI investigation monitored by the Jammu and Kashmir High Court.

The fact is that this list was never made public and charges against those named in it were subsequently denied. In fact, the High Court decided not to make it public saying further investigation was needed.

In its order on October, 8, 2007, the court said that this list includes the “category of persons who have been alleged by Sabina (the woman kingpin of the sex abuse scandal) to have had illicit sex with girls procured by or known to her”.

The order, however, added: “...The concerned girls, though much after the allegations leveled by Sabina, have denied the alleged occurrences. With no other circumstance to support Sabina’s statement being on record which renders further investigation in their cases imperative”.

“Since cases of this category of persons are required to be investigated further, I would, as already said, abstain from naming them,” Justice Bashir Kirmani said in the order.

“But I am totally taken aghast to find names of some highly placed people in this list particularly from police department and political field; high ranking police officers and political functionaries including some former and sitting ministers of the Cabinet. I wish they figure wrongly in this shame list but even a mere incriminating mention of their names in a case of this type, not to say of any involvement like others, already mentioned, is simply stunning,” the judge said.

... contd.