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| PDP in damage control mode | | | AHMED ALI FAYYAZ | 8/1/2009 10:21:14 PM |
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SRINAGAR, Aug 1: Having dismantled its own credibility by leveling an unsubstantiated accusation against Chief Minister Omar Abdullah last week, opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is now mulling to neutralize the negative impact of Muzaffar Hussain Baig’s adventurism by asking him to resign as a Member of Legislative Assembly is was not able to prove the charges he leveled.
Baig’s attempt to bring down seven-month-old Omar Abdullah-led coalition government has backfired on PDP as the party has failed to come up with any convincing evidence to establish that the Chief Minister was involved in the infamous Srinagar sex scandal of 2006. He has been cleared of the charge by Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which, Baig claimed, had submitted a list of 192 “influential persons” to J&K High Court. Baig claimed on the floor of Assembly that Omar Abdullah figured at serial number 102 and later added at a news conference that the National Conference president and Union Minister Dr Farooq Abdullah, too had his name at serial number 38 of the ‘CBI shame list”.
Sources told Early Times that before responding to two identical communications from J&K Assembly Secretariat and Union Home Minister, CBI checked all the documents it had produced in different courts of law in 2006-2008 period and observed that Omar Abdullah’s and Farooq Abdullah’ names were nowhere in its lists of the accused and suspected individuals. Apparently in response to PDP’s question as to how Governor N N Vohra had investigated in 48 hours what CBI and other agencies had failed to do in four years, an official sought to make it clear that Governor had neither any mandate nor a mechanism to investigate matters like that of Srinagar sex scam.
“Governor’s job was restricted to find whether Omar Abdullah’s name did figure among accused persons or suspects in the Srinagar sex scandal. As CBI observed that the J&K Chief Minister’s name did not exist in any of its lists, it was quick to respond to both, Union Home Minister P Chidambaram as well as Speaker of J&K Legislative Assembly, Mohammad Akbar Lone, with the certificate that Mr Omar Abdullah’s name did not exist in any of its lists. Clearly the onus of proof now lies with Mr Baig.
According to sources, CBI officials noticed that that Dr Farooq Abdullah’s name too was not in any of the lists provided to any court. The only reference to “Farooq Abdullah” had been made by a woman, namely Shazia, in her statement, recorded by CBI in presence of Principal District & Sessions Judge Pulwama, Abdul Wahid, on 11th June, 2006.
“While talking to me Iqbal Khanday (a top bureaucrat) asked me whether I knew Dr Sumera. I replied in affirmative. He told me she was his girlfriend. When he asked more about Dr Sumera, I told that she was a girlfriend of Farooq Abdullah residing in Cooperative Colony, Peerbagh, who had given her petrol pump near Magam shrine and one TATA Safari vehicle….”, Shazia had deposed on the basis of what she had heard from one of her former tenants, ‘Ms Sadat’ who happened to be Dr Sumera’s sister.
As regards Omar, CBI officials noticed that there was no reference to the NC leader in entire records other than a woman’s claim that she had sent him an SMS saying that she was his fan which had been acknowledged by him with his thanks. “I categorically state that I had never personally met Omar Abdullah S/o Farooq Abdullah anywhere including Coffea Arabica. My interaction with him was only through SMS which was not of objectionable/ obscene nature”, she had stated in presence of District & Sessions Judge when questions had been put to her in the wake of efforts by certain elements to club Omar and his father with the sex scam accused.
It was on the basis of these observations that Director CBI communicated to J&K Governor through Mr Chidambaram and Secretary Assembly Mohammad Ramzan that was not among 17 of the accused against whom CBI had filed 9 challans in the court. Even as some PDP leaders later improvised their allegation and claimed that Omar’s name was in a subsequent list, which it called as “Shame List”, sources asserted that it did not figure even among over a dozen persons against whom J&K High Court had directed CBI to proceed. Supreme Court had ultimately upheld Director CBI’s plea that the agency could go for arrest and custodial interrogation of the accused only if there was adequate corroboration. “No other shame list does exist in CBI’s or Court records”, said a senior official.
Even as PDP leaders initially began to attack CBI as well as Governor---with the argument that CBI had provided a cover up and Governor had issued his clean chit without investigating the charge against Omar---insiders said that it did not take them much time to understand the difference between investigating the purported charges against Chief Minister (which was not Governor’s business) and knowing whether Omar Abdullah’s name did figure among the accused/suspects (which required a simple verification of the list attributed to CBI).
PDP insiders said that after realizing the impact of an unexpected act by Omar---which has not only wiped out simmering discontentment and disillusionment among the NC cadres but also dramatically created a wave of sympathy for Omar among the common masses---senior leaders in Mehbooba Mufti’s party had now begun to ask Baig to either prove his charges against the Abdullahs or tender his resignation like Omar on moral grounds. They, according to sources, believe that this alone could retrieve the party’s credibility. Sources said that PDP was significantly concerned over the fact that Mr Baig’s adventurism had also washed away all the party’s labour put in the matter of the rape-cum-murder of two women in Shopian in the last two months.
July 31st being the first Friday in last six months when not a single stone was pelted anywhere in Kashmir valley, is being widely interpreted here as sudden upswing in Omar’s popularity graph.
A number of senior leaders in the PDP, according to sources, believe that the party’s embarrassment would only multiply in case the NC-Congress ruling coalition persisted with the privilege motion against Baig and got him dismissed with the advantage of a “proactive Speaker” like Mr Akbar Lone. Twelve of the coalition members, including nine Ministers, have moved a privilege motion against Baig for having “misled the House” with a matter which was otherwise too sub judice and could not be debated in Assembly.
Omar had earlier caught the PDP on wrong foot in Assembly when MLA Nizam-ud-din, had alleged that security forces had destroyed 36 residential houses after a gunbattle with militants at Ayatmullah village in Bandipore. He had proved within a day that his Government’s version of damage to just one house was correct.
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