Bail plea of former J

Srinagar, July 21 (UNI) A local court today again deferred till July 25 the bail applications of former Jammu and Kashmir minister and sitting legislator Raman Mattoo and a hotel owner involved in the sex racket.

As the case came up for hearing, there was no lawyer to plead their case.

The court later deferred the bail applications till July 25 and asked the accused to engage a lawyer.

The Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM), Srinagar Mohammad Yousuf Akhoon had also rejected the bail application of another minister Ghulam Ahmad Mir and senior IAS officer Iqbal Khanday on July 14.

The cases of nine other accused, including Deputy Inspector General of Border Security Force (BSF), a senior police officer and kingpin Sabeena will come up for hearing tomorrow.

Besides Mir, Mattoo and Khanday, the Central Bureau of Invstigation (CBI) has arrested former Additional Advocate General Anil Sethi, Jammu and Kashmir Police Counter-Insurgency Kashmir (CIK) wing DSP Mohammad Yousuf Mir and Naaz Hotel manager Riyaz Kawa.

The CBI arrested Mir, a former Minister of State for Roads and Buildings and a Congress legislator from Dooru in Anantnag district, from the Jammu and Kashmir House at Chanakyapuri in New Delhi on June 20 while Mattoo, also a former Minister of State for Industries and Commerce and an independent legislator from Habba Kadal in Srinagar, was also arrested by the CBI from his residence at Gupkar here on June 20.

However, DIG BSF had surrendered before the CBI here on June 7 while Sethi, who was evading arrest since a proclamation notice was issued against him on June 14 by the CJM following a request by the CBI, also surrendered in a local court at Jammu on June 21.

The CBI arrested Khanday, an IAS officer of 1978 batch and Principal Secretary in the Planning and Development Department On June 29.

The sex racket case was handed over to the CBI on May 1 following allegations that politicians, bureaucrats besides senior police and paramilitary officials were involved in the scandal.

As soon as the scandal surfaced, massive demonstrations erupted in the entire Kashmir valley and the angry protestors brought down the houses of alleged kingpin of the racket Sabeena at Habba Kadal in the old city on June 5.

On May 3, the Jammu and Kashmir High Court took a suo motu cognizance of the case and then on May 12 admitted a public interest litigation filed by the Kashmir Bar Association.

Since then, the High Court is hearing the sex racket case and monitoring the investigations into the scandal by the CBI.

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