Asked CM to 'take care' of her: Father in BJP statement

NEW DELHI: Two investigating websites on Friday introduced a stunning twist in the battle for 2014 elections by releasing tapes purportedly showing Amit Shah , BJP general secretary and a close associate of Narendra Modi , put a young woman under pervasive surveillance at the behest of his "sahib".The tapes released by Cobrapost and Gulail suggest that in 2009 Gujarat Police, following oral instructions of Shah who was state home minister at the time, listened in on the calls of Madhuri (name changed), an architect by profession, and tailed her wherever she went because of Sahib's "obsession" with her.The tapes are based on conversations during August-September 2009 between Shah and a senior Gujarat police officer, G L Singhal, — who is one of the main accused in the Ishrat Jehan 'fake encounter' case but who got bail after CBI failed to file the chargesheet against him in the stipulated 90 days. He has since testified against others accused in the case.The tapes, titled 'The Stalkers' were screened in the presence of Prashant Bhushan of Aam Aadmi Party and RTI activist Aruna Roy and have Shah purportedly asking Gujarat's anti-terrorist squad (ATS) to put a constable on the plane that the architect took for Mumbai. On another occasion, Shah asked Singhal to track numbers of people that Madhuri had called from an airport PCO. Not just her phone, but also those of her family and friends were tapped by the ATS, the tapes reveal.If the tapes are to be believed, Gujarat cops shadowed her everywhere: from shopping malls, restaurants, ice-cream parlours, gyms, cinema halls, hotels and airports to even the hospital where her mother was admitted.Congress reacted to the allegation by demanding a CBI inquiry, suggesting that BJP should change its PM candidate if the charges are found to be true. "If these charges are true, it is a very serious allegation and BJP will be forced to rethink their PM candidate," law minister Kapil Sibal said.Congress spokesperson Meem Afzal said that Shah should come clean on who the "sahib" was and why was he so interested in the woman.BJP did not react, but party sources pointed to the statement issued by Madhuri's father to say that Gujarat police merely responded his plea to ensure protection of his daughter.Tapes show, policemen would be deployed both at the front and rear of buildings Madhuri would visit or stay in. At one point, Shah purportedly admonished policemen for not being adequately diligent, telling them that "sahib" knew more than they did about Madhuri's movement from his sources.Shah, his purported conversation with Singhal shows, was particularly interested in knowing about the men Madhuri would "meet or dated or was planning to get engaged to". One of these men included Pradeep Sharma, an IAS officer who was then posted at Bhavnagar as Municipal Commissioner.Sharma who, like his brother, former IPS officer Kuldeep Sharma, has been at odds with the Modi regime, had alleged in SC in 2011 that he was being targeted by the Gujarat government because he knew about the female architect's links with a powerful figure in Gandhinagar.The IAS officer, whose elder brother has been appointed by the UPA as adviser to ministry of home affairs, had been arrested in connection with the Kutch debris scam.Cobrapost and Gulail sought to link his arrest to Madhuri's meetings with him. They said that in one of his conversations Shah had told Singhal to imprison a man who was meeting Madhuri and see to it that he rotted there longer than the suspended ATS DIG DG Vanzara who had by then been arrested in the Sohrabuddin fake encounter case.The websites suggested that Pradeep Sharma's arrest three months could have been a fallout of the conversation.They also released Singhal's statement to the CBI that Shah had instructed him to put Sharma and the woman under surveillance. "In the latter half of 2009, when I was posted as SP (operations) in the anti-terrorist squad at Ahmedabad, Shri Amit Shah had directed me several times to watch the movements of Shri Pradeep Sharma, who was then posted as Municipal Commissioner, Bhavnagar. He had also asked me to put a watch on a young woman named Madhuri. I had deputed some men of the crime branch (as ATS was short of subordinate staff) to follow her, as directed by Shri Amit Shah," the investigative websites quoted Singhal as having told the CBI on April 17, 2013.Civil society members came down heavily on the Gujarat government and demanded that Shah must reveal who his "Saheb" was. Prashant Bhushan said, "The breach of privacy is a minor part of this saga of shocking crime that exposes the gross misuse of police machinery by the state. When (BJP leader) Arun Jaitley's CDR were accessed by some policemen, the Parliament was stalled for three days."RTI activist Aruna Roy said the expose was a reflection of how a government gets after people who do not agree with it. "It uses terror as a smokescreen to mount surveillance on people," she said.The father of the young woman allegedly put under surveillance by the Gujarat government has said facts have been twisted by vested interests as he had himself sought the assistance of chief minister Narendra Modi.The resident of Kutch said in a statement circulated by the BJP central office that he had approached Modi with whom he has long standing family relations seeking help at a time when his Bangalore-based daughter had come to Ahmedabad.Stating his daughter had come to Ahmedabad as his wife had undergone an operation, the statement said "She was required to frequently commute during odd hours due to which obviously I would be worried as a father."He said he asked Modi to "take care of my daughter and to ensure that she does not face any problem. He assured me as a political head of the state.""It is painful and shocking for us that certain vested interests are approaching the media to present these facts in a perverted manner," he said.The father of the woman said he was appealing to the media that not to give credence to efforts by vested interests to give a political colour to a family matter.