BJP fumes over Jaitley’s phone surveillance

New Delhi : The BJP Saturday demanded an explanation from Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde on the alleged “unauthorised surveillance” on its leader Arun Jaitley even as an arrested constable said he collected the call details for personal reasons.

Calling it a serious issue, the BJP said Shinde must come clean on who ordered the procurement of Jaitley’s phone call details.

Jaitley is leader of opposition in the upper house of parliament.

“The manner in which the call details have been collected is serious. Anyone who is found involved in this act must be punished,” Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Rajnath Singh said here.

Jaitley’s call records were allegedly accessed by Arvind Dabas, a 32-year-old Delhi Police constable, to check his communication with an Uttrakhand leader who had assured him to settle his property deal in Uttrakhand through Jaitley.

Dabas, who was arrested Friday for his alleged involvement in trying to access Jaitley’s mobile call records, told investigators that a leader of Uttrakhand had assured him of providing money which was blocked in a real estate business in Uttrakhand.

Dabas is running a real estate business with two other friends in Uttrakhand, but his money was blocked in a case. The leader assured him that his money will be given and his work will be done as he was well known to Jaitley.

But BJP spokesperson Prakash Javedkar alleged that attempts to secure Jaitley’s call details were made earlier also.

“We want to know on whose order the call details were collected,” he told reporters.

“We want to remind the Congress that these are not the days of the Emergency that they can indulge in such an activity. We will not take it lying down,” he added.