SEEKING SUPPORT: Samajwadi Party general secretary Amar Singh calling on Chief Minister Jayalalithaa at the Secretariat on Thursday.

CHENNAI: Just hours after Samajwadi Party general secretary Amar Singh called on her and claimed "100 per cent support" in the alleged telephone tapping controversy, Chief Minister Jayalalithaa on Thursday urged the United Progressive Alliance Government to take responsibility for "this shocking act of infringing the basic rights guaranteed by the Constitution."

"Clinching evidence"

In a statement, she said: "The evidence is clinching and unassailable. Such matters are taking place with impunity in our country after the UPA Government assumed office. It is time to put a stop to such nefarious and underhand practices which have no place in a democracy."

Ms. Jayalalithaa said the country was reminded of the Watergate scandal.

She said Mr. Singh had furnished copies of an order dated November 11, 2005, issued by the Principal Secretary, Home, of the Delhi Government, authorising interception of his telephone calls, and a letter dated October 22, 2005, from the Joint Commissioner of Police, Crime, Delhi, to the Nodal Officer, Reliance Infocomm, Delhi, directing them to intercept his telephone calls.

"Outrageous"

"It is shocking and outrageous that the Central Government has misused its power in tapping the telephone of a respected political leader citing all kinds of baseless grounds which would apply to a dreaded criminal and affect internal security of the country," she said.

Terming the alleged telephone tapping a "most disgraceful and serious" issue, Ms. Jayalalithaa said it clearly violated the basic guarantee of freedom of speech and right to life enshrined in the Constitution, besides going against the guidelines issued by the Supreme Court. "I feel this is a very grave situation which has shaken the basic structure of our great democracy."

She said: "While this specific instance of tapping of telephones of political leaders has now come out into the open, I have all along felt that my telephones are being tapped by the Centre. I have so far refrained from making this public because I knew that there could be a flat denial by the Centre."

As Mr. Singh had furnished "solid proof," she demanded a "detailed investigation to uncover the conspiracy behind this" at once.

Surreptitious surveillance

Political adversaries should be faced in electoral battles and not through "this kind of surreptitious and underhand surveillance," Ms. Jayalalithaa said. If it could happen to Mr. Singh, "it can happen to every Opposition leader in the country. Does it mean that all those who do not agree with the policies of the Central Government have to be treated as enemies and hounded as dreaded criminals?"

Said Ms. Jayalalithaa: "If this system of allowing private telecom companies to tap telephones is perpetuated, it can well lead to a situation where even terrorists can misuse this system to tap our scientists, atomic research establishments and defence installations. It is my emphatic view that both our national security and internal security have been seriously compromised."

Earlier, Mr. Singh said Ms. Jayalalithaa had told him that he was the only politician "to catch them red-handed."

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