Maharshtra govt forms committee for investigating phone tapping case

Mumbai, February 3, 2020: A two member committee, comprising the additional chief secretary of home department and joint commissioner of Intelligence department has been constituted for investigating the allegations of phone taping for monitoring activities of political opponents. This information was given by home minister Anil Deshmukh today.

Mr Deshmukh was interacting with the reporters at the journalist chamber in Mantralaya. He further said that many political parties and public representatives had complaint about phone tapping during the state assembly elections and prior to that with the intention to monitor the activities of the opposition. He said that this is a very serious matter and needs to be investigated with immediate effect. The home minister said that it is necessary to investigate whether he power was misused to gather the the call data record (CDR) using phone taping. He said that it is necessary to investigate whether the laws were flouted while using the power and was there any mala fide intention behind the taping of the phones. The government hat constituted a two member committee comprising chief secretary (Appeal and security) Shreekant Singh and joint commissioner (Intelligence) Amitesh Kumar. The committee will be inquiring into the the Phone tapping allegations and submitting its report within six weeks.

Mr Deshmukh further said that the agitation of women is going on at the Nagpada against the Citizen Amendment Act(CAA), National Register for citizenship (NRC) and National Population register(NPR). He said that a delegation of the agitating women met him today and positive discussions were held. MLA Abu Azmi, Rais Sheikh, police commissioner of Mumbai Sanjay Barve, former President of state minority commission Nasim Siddiqui, former MLA Waris Pathan and others were present on the occasion. He said that the discussions with the delegation of the agitating woman were positive. He added that the government has being telling that not a single citizen from Maharashtra will be deprived off the citizenship under the CAA and we have clarified the stand of government every then and now. Mr Deshmukh said that conveying this to the delegation, they were asked to end the agitation and we received positive response.

Stating that the acid attack on women professor in Hinganghat of Wardha district as unfortunate, the home minister said that the accused have been identified and arrested. He said that the state government is sensitive on atrocities on women and this case will be run in Fast Track. He said that in Andhra Pradesh the provision for punishment in women atrocity cases is to be given in 21 days and we have asked the Andhra government to provide us all the documents in this regard, adding that he himself will be visiting Andhra Pradesh to seek the information about this new provision.