Senior IPS officer Rashmi Shukla tapped phones of BJP MPs and MLAs by falsely claiming they were drug dealers and extortionists, Maharashtra home minister Dilip Walse Patil has alleged. As commissioner of the State Intelligence Department, Shukla tapped phones of then BJP MP Nana Patole, then BJP MLA Ashish Deshmukh, BJP Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Kakde and independent MLA Bachu Kadu, Patil alleged.
“Nana Patole’s phone was tapped claiming that he was Amjad Khan, involved in selling drugs to college children; the phone of Sanjay Kakade, your own party MP, was tapped claiming he was a gangster working in the Babu Naik gang in Pune and involved in dacoity, land grabbing and extortion. Similarly, Ashish Deshmukh’s phone was tapped claiming that the number belonged to Hina Salunkhe,” Patil alleged.
Patil was speaking on ‘misuse’ of government agencies during Devendra Fadnavis‘ regime. “A high-powered committee appointed by the government has found that phones were illegally tapped by wrongly claiming that they were gangsters and drug dealers. I could have understood if political rivals were spied on; but strangely, your own party members were spied on. The law has been misused,” Patil alleged. Responding to Fadnavis’ allegations that a special public prosecutor attempted to trap BJP leaders like Girish Mahajan, him and other leaders, Patil said: “Special public prosecutor Pravin Chavan has sent in his resignation and the government has accepted it. We will have the allegations probed by the state CID. We will investigate recordings you have submitted.”
The BJP, however, walked out from the assembly claiming they were not satisfied with the minister’s reply and would approach the judiciary for a CBI probe. Fadnavis alleged that the government was trying to ‘bury the probe’ as the sting had discussed framing Girish Mahajan.
Video recordings Fadnavis submitted last week purportedly showed Chavan discuss with police officials and MVA leaders plans to frame Mahajan in a fake assault case. On the BJP’s demand for MVA minister Nawab Malik’s resignation, Patil said Malik was ‘silenced’ because he had been taking on the BJP government at the Centre. Earlier in the day, Fadnavis read out ‘transcripts from another video’. Fadnavis alleged that the tape proved that the MVA was ’employing relatives of Dawood Ibrahim’ to important posts.
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