The phones of some prominent political leaders including Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar and Congress leader Digvijay Singh have been tapped, the Outlook magazine has claimed in its latest issue.
The phones of Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and CPI(M) General Secretary Prakash Karat have also been tapped by the National Technical Research Organisation, an intelligence agency created in the aftermath of the Kargil war to cover all aspects of technical intelligence gathering, according to the magazine.
While the phones of Singh and Kumar were tapped in 2007 and that of Karat in 2008 at the height of his opposition to the Indo-US nuclear deal leading to the no-confidence motion against the government, the telephone of Pawar was tapped and taped last fortnight in the wake of the scandal in the IPL.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar said any tapping of telephone at his official bungalow was "illegal and undemocratic". "It is thoroughly illegal. Such type of act is disastrous and a blow to the democratic system," Kumar said.