Patil on SP phone tapping issue

    New Delhi: Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil is meeting chief executive officers (CEOs) of all public and private telecom companies here today in the wake of the phone tapping allegations leveled by the Samajwadi Party. The telecom chiefs are likely to work out a strategy against the loopholes in their services that could lead to unauthorised interception of phone calls following a direction by the Delhi Police, which held a meeting with officials of private telephone operators in this regard yesterday. Nodal officers of private telecom players, including Reliance Infocomm, Airtel and Hutch are expected to attend the meeting. Representatives of the public telecom service provider, Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL), are also expected to take part in the meeting.

    It maybe recalled that the police have arrested two persons in connection with the illegal tapping of Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh's phone at his residence. The arrests of Bhupendra Kumar, who ran a private detective agency in south Delhi and Kuldeep, an employee of Reliance Infocomm, came following claims by Amar Singh that his Reliance Infocomm telephone was being tapped by the Central government. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav had alleged last week that Congress party President Sonia Gandhi had asked government agencies to tap the telephones of senior SP leaders. Yadav had said that the conversation of Amar Singh was regularly being tapped and his phone had a direct link to the phone of Joint Commissioner (Crime), North Zone, Delhi, adding that the Principal Secretary, Home, had given the order for this operation. The Home Minister, however, denied any knowledge of telephone tapping and had assured Mulayam Singh Yadav that the matter would be investigated.

Congress rubbishes SP's claim of phone tapping at
the behest of 10 Janpath

     New Delhi: The Congress today strongly reacted to the Samajwadi Party's allegation that its party leaders' phones were tapped at the behest of the Congress party chief Sonia Gandhi. Congress spokesperson Ambika Soni today said that it was wrong on the part of SP chief and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav and his "fund manager" Amar Singh to level the allegation that their phones were tapped on the "direction" of 10 Janpath. Ambika Soni said that none of the government-owned telephone companies - the MTNL or the BSNL - were involved in phone tapping. She said: "The phones that were tapped were of a private company - Reliance Infocom, and neither of the two government phone companies was involved in the act. So where does the question arise of phones being tapped at the behest of the Union Government or the Congress." "Is the tapped conversation of Amar Singh with his film actress friends so incriminating, that the duo is so tense and fuming," Ambika amusingly said. When asked to elaborate her statement, she said that the "relations of Amar Singh with the people from the film world is widely known." The Congress also rejected Mulayam's demand of instituting an inquiry by a team of three chief ministers - Nitish Kumar (Bihar), Jayalalitha (Tamil Nadu) and Buddhadev Bhattacharya (West Bengal). Ambika said that the demand couldn't be accepted, as it would set a wrong precedent when an independent investigating agency CBI was there to do the job. "Did Mulayam himself institute such an inquiry (by a team of CMs) when an MLA in his state was murdered recently, or when there was a communal riot in Mau, or when thousands of people had died of Encyphalitis in Gorakhpur."

    On CPI-M General Secretary Prakash Karat's statement describing the allegation of phone tapping of SP leaders as " done at the behest of 10 Janpath", she said, "We condemned the incident even before the CPI(M) . As far as the allegation against Sonia Gandhi is concerned, let the matter be investigated and the truth come out." She also rejected the notion that the SP leaders were mounting pressure on the Congress by successfully mobilising the CPI-M's support. Taking a strong exception at the language of Mulayam-Amar Singh duo, she said: "We always maintain a decorum while taking their names, and we expect from them that they take our party president's name also with respect, and not simply refer her to as 'Sonia'."