State Home Minister Anil Deshmukh has announced a two-member committee to look into complaints of alleged phone tapping in the run-up to the Assembly elections by the erstwhile Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government.
The team will comprise additional chief secretary (Home Department) Shrikant Singh and Joint Commissioner in the State Intelligence Department Amitesh Kumar. The team will be given six weeks to complete its inquiry and submit a report. It may induct officers and technical specialists.
“The BJP-led government is accused of indulging in illegal phone tapping by my colleagues from the Congress, Nationalist Congress Party and Shiv Sena by misuse of the government machinery,” Mr. Deshmukh said. Keeping particular telephones under surveillance and using their authority to procure records like call data was “grossly misused”, especially over the past one year, “with the vested interest of making political gains,” he said. “This abuse of power has serious implications in respect of national security and the right to freedom and individual privacy as enshrined in the Constitution.”
Technical help
Mr. Deshmukh said, “The inquiry will not only cover the legal documentation, but also take support from technical experts to unravel the [digital] footprints [left behind] on servers of telecom companies through verification, and physical visits to decipher whether such unofficial surveillance was launched against leaders of the three political parties by the previous government.”
Asked if the inquiry would also include non-political players, such as bureaucrats and journalists, Mr. Deshmukh said, “This is phase one of the process that has been initiated. There is a lot more to follow.”
He said the inquiry seeks to establish the identity of officials who purportedly visited Israel at the instance of the government. “Who were these officials who went to Israel to procure software needed to carry out this specialised surveillance for securing political profits for the erstwhile government?”
Former chief minister Devendra Fadnavis had last month rejected all allegations of such surveillance.
Meanwhile, Mr. Deshmukh said protesters who had gathered in Nagpada against the Citizenship Amendment Act, National Register of Citizens and National Population Register had been asked to disband as they did not have police permission. “Home Department officials today met a 25-member delegation from the Mumbai agitation site. We informed them to wind up their protests. Their delegation promised to get back after deliberations with the organisers.”
FIR against protester
On alleged anti-national statements raised at a rally at Azad Maidan on Sunday by members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community, the minister said an FIR had been lodged against a woman called Urvashi Chudawala and her associates. “Ms. Chudawala had entered the site of the rally with three to four associates and allegedly raised anti-India slogans. She was in no way connected to the LGBT community as per the organisers,” Mr. Deshmukh said.
Mumbai Police spokesperson DCP Pranaya Ashok said Ms. Chudawala had been charged with sedition, imputations or assertions prejudicial to national integration and statement conducing public mischief, under the Indian Penal Code.
(With inputs from Gautam S. Mengle)
