Other States - Punjab   

Amarinder Govt. tapping phones: BJP

Staff Correspondent

`28000 phones under surveillance'

CHANDIGARH: The Bharatiya Janata Party has accused Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh of breach of privacy by placing about 28,000 phones across the State under illegal surveillance. The party has demanded a CBI probe into "the widespread incidence of phone tapping".

According to a release, the party's national secretary Harjit Singh Grewal and State unit president Avinash Rai Khanna alleged that while 6,000 telephones of eminent politicians cutting across party lines and journalists were being permanently tapped, another 22,000 phones were on the "occasional" tapping hit list of the Chief Minister's men.

Most of these tapped phones were in Jalandhar, Ludhiana, Amritsar and Patiala cities, and included all kinds of landline and mobile numbers, they charged.

Claiming "definite information" as "clinching" evidence, Mr. Grewal talking to The Hindu said the party would ensure a thorough probe into the matter in case it returned to power after the next elections. He said the tapping was carried out in a clandestine manner, without following any prescribed procedures. He said according to information with the party, the State Government had installed one machine each at the police headquarters, in the premises of a close aide of the Chief Minister, and in a mobile unit.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section

Punjab Assembly session on September 14
Amarinder Govt. tapping phones: BJP

Copyright © 2006, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu