Omar Abdullah didn't figure in sex scandal case: CBI

The CBI has informed the Speaker of Jammu and Kashmir Assembly that neither Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah nor Union Minister Farooq Abdullah figured in the investigations into the 2006 sex scandal.

Assembly Speaker Akbar Lone said he had received a communication from the CBI to this effect. "Yes, I have received a letter from CBI Director (Ashwani Kumar) stating that neither the Chief Minister nor the Dr Farooq Abdullah were involved in the sex scandal," he said.

The allegations were levelled against Omar and his father by senior PDP leader and former Deputy Chief Minister Muzzafar Hussain Beigh on the floor of the House yesterday triggering a political storm in the state that led to the resignation of the Chief Minister. ...It is clarified that nine chargesheets have been filed in connection with RC(S)2006/SCR/III in competent courts against 17 persons.

The name of Omar Abdullah does neither figure nor that of Farooq Abdullah in the list of accused persons chargesheeted in the case," Lone quoted the CBI communication as saying. Union Home Minister P Chidambaram had said yesterday that there was no mention of the state Chief Minister in CBI investigations into the case.

The sex scandal rocked the state in 2006 with the arrest of a woman who allegedly claimed during interrogation that she used to send girls including minors to politicians, senior policemen and bureaucrats.

Among the 17 people chargesheeted by the CBI include G A Mir and Raman Mattoo, both ministers in the then PDP-led Government, and Mohammed Iqbal Khandey, former Principle Secretary to the then Chief Minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed.