Snooping row: Website releases pic of Narendra Modi with woman

www.mangaloretoday.com

New Delhi, Nov 29, 2013 (Zee News): The investigative website, which earlier this month claimed that the Gujarat state government had subjected a young woman to illegal surveillance, has now uploaded a photograph of BJP’s PM candidate Narendra Modi with the architect, who had come from Bangalore.

Gulail.com has released tapes of purported conversations between Amit Shah and suspended Gujarat police officer GL Singhal to allege "incident(s) of security/surveillance of a woman in the state of Gujarat in 2009".

 

(Pic courtesy: gulail.com)

The website has now posted pictures to prove that the woman had known Modi at least since 2005.

According to the expose made earlier this month, the woman’s movements and her conversations were being covered by the Gujarat "state Intelligence Bureau, the Crime Branch and the Anti-Terrorist Squad in August 2009 on oral orders, without any valid legal authorisation, and was meant only to serve the interests of someone whom Amit Shah, addressed as ’saheb’."

The website also uploaded more pictures to establish Modi’s presence at the first edition of ’Kutch Sharad Utsav’ in October 2005. Out of a dozen, one picture shows a smiling Modi engaged in animated conversation with IAS officer Pradeep Sharma and the woman with her face blurred.

In a statement, the website said: "These pictures raise a serious question mark about the credibility of the explanation put forth both by Madhuri’s father Premlal Soni and the BJP that only Premlal was known to Modi and it was he who had requested the CM to ’take care’ of his daughter in 2009 when the illegal snooping operation was mounted. The pictures show that Modi knew Madhuri for at least five years before his state machinery mounted an illegal round the clock vigil on the young woman in August 2009. It also confirms that part of the affidavit filed by Sharma in the Supreme Court in which he had alleged that Madhuri had visited Modi when he came to inaugurate the ’Sharad Utsav’ in October 2005. Sharma served as the collector of Kutch district between 2003 and 2005."

Gujarat IPS officer GL Singhal, who is an accused in the Ishrat Jahan fake encounter case (Ishrat was killed, along with three others, by Gujarat Police in 2004) and out on bail, has handed over hundreds of recorded telephonic conversations to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) revealing the details of the tailing of the young woman.

Singhal, according to the report, has told the CBI that the surveillance was illegal and was carried out only on the oral instructions of Shah.

"The recordings reveal that the woman was tailed even as she visited shopping malls, restaurants, ice-cream parlours, gyms, cinema halls, hotels and airports. She was followed even when she visited her ailing mother in a hospital in Ahmedabad." The website had said earlier.

"When she boarded a flight out of Ahmedabad, orders were issued to put cops on the flight so that she was not out of sight even when she was flying. Strict orders were given to closely observe and profile those who met her. Shah was particularly interested in knowing the men she was meeting and whether she was alone or with some man when she checked into a hotel in Ahmedabad."

"Her phones and that of her family and friends were tapped. Every bit of information was conveyed to Shah in real time, who in turn claimed to be relaying it to his ’saheb’. Listening to the conversations leaves no doubt that the people involved in the operation knew who this ’saheb’ was," the investigative site says.

"The disclosures in the Singhal-Shah tapes raise several disturbing questions. Who wanted the woman to be watched and why?"