The tapping reportedly happened before the Maha Vikas Aghadi government was formed in November 2019, when the BJP was in power in the state. The investigation of the matter has resulted in the findings of a three-member committee constituted by the MVA government. It has been told that the request for phone tapping was made by the Intelligence Department of the state.
New Delhi: The phones of Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Eknath Khadse were allegedly tapped and illegally monitored for 67 and 60 days. Before NCP, Khadse was in BJP.
According to the Free Press Journal report, the phones of these leaders were allegedly tapped when the Maharashtra Intelligence Department (SID) was headed by IPS officer Rashmi Shukla.
The tapping reportedly happened before the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government was formed in November 2019, when the BJP was in power in the state.
A senior home department official said Raut’s phone was tapped on two occasions. Once for seven days and then again for 60 days. Both Khadse and Raut’s names were on the SID’s request list for phone tapping.
The official said, ‘Most important is that this request was made by the SID. Apart from this, phones of Congress leaders Nana Patole, Independent MLA Bacchu Kadu and former MLA Ashish Deshmukh were also illegally tapped.
As part of the ongoing investigation in the case, Raut and Khadse submitted their statements to the police on April 9 and 7.
The inquiry resulted from the findings of a three-member committee constituted by the MVA government in the phone tapping case. The committee was headed by Director General of Police (DGP) Sanjay Pandey, who is now the Maharashtra Police Commissioner.
According to the Indian Express report, the committee initially learned that Shukla had allegedly played a role in tapping the phone of state Congress president Nana Patole and a case was also registered against him in Pune on February 25. it was done.
The committee found Shukla responsible for tapping the phones of Raut and Khadse and one of the committee members filed a case against them under various sections of the IPC and the Telegraph Act.
She is presently on central deputation as Additional Director General of Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) in Hyderabad. A case was registered against him in March.
An official said that the police suspect that the phones of other leaders were tapped but their records were destroyed.
However, the official did not disclose the months in which the phones were tapped. They claimed that Shukla tapped the phones of Raut, Khadse and Patole for fifteen days in the last three months of 2019.
Assembly elections in Maharashtra were held in October 2019.
In March, Patole filed a defamation suit of Rs 500 crore against Shukla in the civil court of Maharashtra.
The court issued notice to Shukla, asking him and others named in the case to file their replies before April 12.
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