Early in April 2006, Srinagar residents complained to the police about two pornographic video clips which were circulating from mobile phone to mobile phone.

The police soon arrested a local woman who figured in both clips. The woman, who claimed she was just 16, said she had been recruited to a prostitution operation run by Ms. Bulla.

Highly placed government sources said the document displayed by Mr. Baig was produced by the police for internal use in early May 2006.

Based on interviews with key figures in the prostitution ring, Shahidganj Sub-Divisional Police Officer Javed Kaul compiled a list of over 90 men alleged to have used Ms. Bulla’s services. The report included Mr. Abdullah’s name, police sources said, based on the fact that his phone number figured in a diary recovered from Ms. Bulla and uncorroborated testimony by an alleged member of the ring. Later, though, the case was handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation. CBI detectives rapidly exonerated many of those named in Mr. Kaul’s report.

In some cases, the CBI found, individuals named clients by Ms. Bulla had alibis for the dates on which they were said to have been supplied prostitutes. In other instances, sex workers were unable to provide credible testimony on the dates and locations they had visited alleged customers. More than once, witnesses failed to identify their alleged clients at identification parades.

Moreover, CBI sources say, several individuals named in Mr. Kaul’s document turned out to be targets of blackmail by Ms. Bulla’s associates. Mr. Abdullah himself, the sources said, taped a call from a Srinagar-based television journalist who demanded payoffs in return for his name being dropped from the testimony of one alleged sex worker. In response to a query from The Hindu, Mr. Abdullah refused to either confirm or deny this account.

Eventually, the CBI filed charges against a relatively small group of individuals against whom investigators found credible evidence and who were named by Ms. Bulla and other members of her operations in statements before a magistrate. Mr. Abdullah, like the overwhelming majority of those whose names had figured in Mr. Kaul’s report, was not among them.

The former Additional Advocate-General, Anil Sethi; Border Security Force Deputy Inspector-General K.C. Padhi, Deputy Superintendent of Police Mohammad Ashraf Mir, Shabbir Ahmad Langoo, Shabbir Ahmad Laway, Mehrajuddin Malik and Masood Ahmed were prosecuted for raping the minor, as well as violations of the Prevention of Immoral Trafficking Act.

Iqbal Khandey, then Principal Secretary to the Government of Jammu and Kashmir, was also charged with the PITA, along with the former Deputy Superintendent of Police, Mohammad Yusuf Mir, and sitting members of the Assembly Raman Mattoo and Ghulam Nabi Mir. Srinagar resident Riyas Ahmad Kawa was also prosecuted under the provisions of the PITA.

Shabbir Ahmad Langoo, who circulated pornographic photographs of the minor taken with his mobile phone, was prosecuted under the Information Technology Act.

Few of those tarred by the allegations of having been linked to the prostitution scandal seem to have suffered serious damage.

Both politicians now being tried on charges of having hired prostitutes from Ms. Bulla contested last year’s Assembly elections. Mr. Mir won the Dooru seat with a comfortable margin. Peerzada Mohammad Sayeed, a senior Kokernag-based Congress leader who, others in his party claimed, without basis, was linked to the scandal, defeated PDP nominee Seher Iqbal, daughter of Mr. Khandey.

Mr. Khandey, like other officials suspended when the scandal broke out, has since been reinstated.

Late last year, in an interview to a Srinagar paper, Ms. Bulla said she was planning to write a book.

She also expressed her admiration for Islamist leader Asiya Andrabi, who led public protests against the prostitution scandal. Ms. Bulla claimed that she was a victim of circumstances.

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