and directed the investigating officers not to press it. It resurfaced again in 2006 and the then Deputy Chief Minister Muzaffar Baig without consulting Mufti Sayeed wrote to Chief Minister Azad to go for a CBI enquiry. Nine charge-sheets and 17 detentions followed. Scores of accused were left untouched allegedly under intense pressure.

Ghulam Ahmad Mir of Congress was re-elected to the assembly after coming out on bail. Iqbal Khanday is back to his office. M Yusuf Mir is busy policing now. The case against them is going on in a Punjab district court at snail’s pace. The main case in Srinagar high court is still seeking a future course and a full bench has had two hearings to decide how they will manage the conflict verdict of a division bench comprising Justices Abdul Hamid Kirmani and Hakeem Imtiaz Hussain. The bench did not differ in fundamental observation that the case needs to be probed further in wake of lax investigations by the CBI. Both said some people against whom enough of material exists on record were left untouched. But they differed on future course of action and passed two separate orders, an issue before the full bench now.

“If the PDP really wanted to ensure prosecution of the accused in the sex abuse scandal, then it could have moved a call attention and urged the entire house to join in requesting the judiciary for a speedy decision. That is what people working within the ambit of electoral democracy could do best. But the PDP doesn’t seem to have been motivated by the idea of justice,” said Basharat Peer, author of Curfewed Night. “PDP was only abusing the issue to throw eggs at its rival Omar Abdullah.”

That PDP was out only to caste blame on the NC was evident. “If it is a real list, then it will have the names of many senior Congressmen,” said a middle rung police official, adding that, “Otherwise it is a fake list.” When reporters asked Muzaffar Baig about the names of other people in the “list,” he insisted there were “not many significant names” except Dr Farooq Abdullah. Senior Congressman Madan Lal Sharma triggered a crisis last year when he talked about two of his colleagues saying “We (Congress) fell on the feet of Sonia Gandhi and Ghulam Nabi Azad so that they could remove their names from the list because their arrest could have collapsed Congress in J&K.” Interestingly, all the three are senior ministers in Omar’s government. Blaming Omar and being silent about the suspected Congressmen makes it a weapon and not the concern. Political pundits say PDP skipping mentioning Congress was not to impact its chance of a future coalition with the Congress.

Will the controversy have any impact on the sex abuse case that the J&K high court full bench is yet to decide? Kashmir Life talked to Mian Abdul Qayoom and Zafar A Shah, who as Kashmir Bar Association office bearers are petitioners as well. They said it has nothing to do with the case. “Courts do not take into cognizance the out of court drama. It is not on record of the court proceedings,” Qayoom said. “The future course of the case will strictly be determined on basis of the records and pleadings and not what happens out of the court room.”

“Sufficiency or insufficiency of evidence and possibility of evidence becoming available or not are matters that courts will see during the course of investigations,” explained Shah. He said once the full bench takes a decision on the issue, it will be investigating agency that will decide who is a suspect and who is accused.

Even NC did not behave reasonably. It tabled a six question paper for Baig that speaker said Nazir Gurezi handed over to him that talked about his six relationships including that of his wife. It named a high-profile lady by name. The questionnaire was circulated on e-mail and efforts were made to get it printed in newspapers. Media exhibited utmost restraint but the custodians of the house tried to earn some brownie points in utter disregard of the fact that two questions were about the widow (who is a grandmother now) and the daughter of one of its erstwhile members!

As the two parties are battling over sleaze and washing the dirty linen in public, the society is feeling the sickening of the institutions. “For long the politicians have been telling us that this is the epitome of the sacrifices that we made,” a top executive of a private sector company said. “In my life, I saw it gradually being disempowered and finally disgraced now”.

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