CHANDIGARH: A special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court today sentenced five accused including former Border Security Force (BSF) deputy inspector general and an ex-deputy superintendent of J&K police to ten years imprisonment in the 2006 Jammu & Kashmir sex scandal case.
Besides the ten-year jail sentence, former BSF DIG KC Padhi and former DSP of state police and encounter specialist Ashraf Mir were also fined Rs one lakh by the court. While the other accused Shabbir Laway, Ahmad Langoo, and Masood Ahmad were fined Rs 50,000 by the special CBI court of Gagan Geet Kaur.
On May 30, the court had held these five accused but had acquitted the then Advocate General of Jammu and Kashmir Anil Sethi and businessman Mehraj-ud-Din Malik due to benefit of doubt.
This sex scandal came to light in 2006 after the Jammu and Kashmir police came across video CDs of some Kashmiri minors being sexually exploited and during the investigations names of 56 people
allegedly involved in the racket came up including the then two ministers in J&K government besides several legislators, bureaucrats and police officials.
The police had then questioned the minors and the alleged kingpin Sabeena. These minors who were forced into prostitution were paid between Rs 250 to Rs 500.
In May 2006 this case was transferred to CBI from J&K Police and later that year the Supreme Court transferred the case to the district court in Chandigarh due to sensitive nature of the case.
As per the CBI charge sheet, there were four survivors and nine accused in the case.
During the course of the trial, prime accused Sabeena and her husband Abdul Hamid Bulla died as they allegedly use to run a brothel in Habba Kadal area of Srinagar.
Meanwhile three survivors had turned hostile during the trial and the fourth one was kept in CBI protective custody. Due to the sensitive nature of the case and involvement of minors, the entire trial was kept in-camera and code words were used by the CBI so that the identity of the complainants and witnesses were not compromised.
The then J&K chief minister Oman Abdullah submitted his resignation when his name was linked with this case but the then J&K Governor N N Vohra had refused to accept his resignation.