All Governments sometime or the other resort to snooping which is necessarily not legal due the very nature of the persons they have to keep an eye on. Political opponents, disgruntled party members, trade union leaders and criminal elements. But to use the Government machinery for stalking not just political opponents but for abduction, murder, stinging their own RSS member and now an IAS officer Shri Pradeep Sharma along with a young lady, the Gujarat Government has broken all norms of Constitutional Governance.The covert activities of Gujarat Government of snooping, stalking, tapping, abducting and murdering people without any public exposure for eight long years was possible mainly because a secret cell that was created in the Gujarat Police department comprising of very trusted officers since 2002.
Mr DG Vanzara, the then DIG of the Detection of Crime Branch, Ahmedabad was the unwritten boss of this cell. Abhay Chudasama SP, GL Singhal ACP, NK Amin DySP, Tarun Barot PI, were some of these trusted officers who carried out all covert operations under the orders of either Modi (who has remained the CM-cum-home minster since 2003) or Amit Shah (who was the Minister of State for Home till he got arrested in 2010). For eight long years this covert-cell has been functioning till the Supreme Court stepped in 2007 resulting in the arrest of Vanzara and others. This cell ofcourse needed intelligence input which was being provided by another trusted central intelligence officer, Shri Rajinder Kumar, the Joint Director SIB from 2002 to 2008. Apart from the Central IB, service was also being provided by the State IB as long as its chief was malleable. One such officer was former ADGP Mr J Mahapatra.
We now give a few illustrations to establish the level at which these operations were undertaken.
1. First a botched up operation. Initially Modi tried to keep a tight watch on the then powerful opponent Shankarsinh Vaghela. Modi tried to requisition the service of former IGP Sreekumar in 2003 who was the Chief of State Intelligence bureau but failed as Sreekumar refused to take illegal orders. Sreekumar was replaced as State IB chief by IGP Mahapatra.
2. The second daring operation was the abduction and murder of Sadik Jamal on 13th January, 2003. In this operation both Shri Rajinder Kumar of Central IB and Mahapatra from State IB were directly involved in stalking Sadik from Mumbai to Bhavnagar and back to Mumbai where Sadik was abducted by Mumbai police under the orders of Rajinder Kumar. The role of these two officers was exposed by the Superintendent of Police, Bhavnagar who has given a statement to CBI on 31.8.2011 admitting that on 29.11.2002, he had first received a phone call from Rajinder kumar to look for a guy called Ayub Islam. After 2-3 hours he was given a different name-Sadik Jamal. We reproduce an extract from his statement below:
After about 2-3 hours, Shri Rajinder Kumar, then Jt. Director, IB and Shri Mahapatra, then Addl. DG, Intelligence again called me over phone and gave me a name of Sadik Jamal Mehtar r/o Kala Nala, Upperkot, Bhavanagar a trained militant having links with Lashkar-e-Toiba who had come to Gujarat to kill Shri Narendar Modi and Shri Praveenbhai Togadia VHP and he was to be detained at the earliest. During telephone conversation, I could make out that Shri Rajinder Kumar, Jt. Director, IB (Central) was more concerned towards detention of said Sadik whereas Shri Mahapatra, the then Addl. DG intelligence had asked me to verify the facts as stated by Shri Rajinder Kumar of IB and report back to him accordingly.
3. In a recent news item published by DNA Ahmedabad, a sting operation shown in NewsX channel where in the former ADGP Mahapatra was caught telling the journalist that on May 26, 2006 he had allocated Rs. 50000/- for snooping on Sanjay Joshi, a senior RSS functionary and Modi’s bete noire. The snooping led to a secret filming of Joshi reportedly catching Sanjay in a compromising position. Some of the Gujarat policemen had distributed the CD amongst the RSS members forcing Joshi to quit active politics!
4. The stalking of Mansi Soni and Pradeep Sharma by ACP GL Singhal under the orders of Modi and Amit Shah is therefore no surprise in the state of Gujarat though it may shock the conscience of the outsiders.
The investigation by CBI apparently has reached Rajinder Kumar but it has developed cold feet when it came to arraigning the political bosses or the top-cops of covert cells carrying out the illegal activities.
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