Snooping and stooping to what extent?

As an aftermath of the Delhi rape case and the Justice Verma Committee report, the Indian
Penal Code (IPC) was amended in relation to sexual offences against women. The amendments included the crime of stalking, “to follow a woman” and “to monitor a woman by the use of the internet, mail or any other means of electronic communication”. The punishment for this crime is between one and three years.

Also, there are other laws on phone tapping. Section 5.2 of the Indian Telegraph Act permits phone tapping on grounds of public emergency, national security and sovereignty, public safety and matters concerning friendly relations between countries, amongst other reasons of similar importance. Further, the law mentions that in such cases of tapping, a written instruction from the home secretary, and recorded reasons on strong grounds for surveillance need to be in place.

In the present case of the Chief Minister’s alleged relationship with Mansi Soni and the use, without adequate clearances, of the anti-terrorist squad and other state machinery, through the conduit of Amit Shah, and the then anti-terrorist squad (ATS) head GL Singhal, to stalk and snoop on her, is in gross violation to all the above mentioned offences.

No one in the BJP or the CM’s office dispute the tapes, or the evidence of clear monitoring on a minute by minute basis of the woman’s movements by the minister of state. In fact, the woman’s father assures us in a letter that he asked for ‘protection’ directly from the CM. So, undisputedly we have the surveillance on the authority of the CM, and use of the ATS to hound a woman. We also have the then police chief SK Saikia saying that no permission was sought from him, none given. The centre’s investigative agencies have also told the government that no written instructions or records are available or exist with the Gujarat police, the state department or even the union home ministry about the surveillance. Thus, the intelligence agencies suggest that the phone tapping prima facie is “illegal and in violation of the laid-down procedure prescribed for phone surveillance”.

Consensual sex between consenting adults is a private matter, and must be. And a politician has as much right to this privacy as anyone else. But Indian citizens by law have a right to privacy.

Stalking them is a crime. And use of the highest anti-terrorist squads to calm personal jealousies and insecurities is a crime. Shockingly, both have been committed by our elected government and involve the head of our state.

If at all more evidence was needed to point out the nexus between politics and business, and the quid pro quo deals that propel decisions in our world, the fortunes of the Soni family followed the exact same course of the alleged affair. Ecolibrium, a company promoted by the Soni siblings, won the contract for the capital’s smart grid project, installing solar grids on nine government buildings and has been flourishing ever since.

Simultaneously, Pradeep Sharma, the “other man” in the so called triangle, found his fortunes sinking. A slew of cases were filed against him, and he spent many months in jail. The verbal instructions for the same, in a taped conversation between Amit Shah and GL Singhal,
instructed the latter to put Pradeep away for longer than Vanzara!

A few years ago, the CM asked the women of Gujarat to sleep well for ‘he — the brother’ would stay awake to protect them. He asked them to write to him if they needed help. The widows of the dead farmers wrote . The widows of the hooch tragedy wrote. Yet, not one response was received, to the best of public knowledge. Is Mansi Soni the only Gujarati woman deserving of “protection”?

And if so, must we not be grateful for not having caught the interest of the most powerful in the state?

The writer is a noted danseuse and social activist