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War of words continues over snooping (Roundup)

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IANS New Delhi
Last Updated : Nov 20 2013 | 8:26 PM IST

The war of words continued Wednesday over the alleged snooping of a young woman by Gujarat Police, even as a member of the National Commission for Women (NCW) demanded the home ministry look into the case.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) continued to defend the episode, saying the woman's father requested the government to spy on his daughter.

"The girl about whom we are talking, her father wrote a letter and made everything public... there is nothing left for us to say," BJP chief Rajnath Singh said in Jaipur Wednesday.

According to reports, the woman's father wrote a letter to the NCW, saying his daughter, an "architect and educated woman is married and deeply perturbed by the intrusion upon her personal life and privacy".

BJP leader Arun Jaitley toed his party line, saying a probe was not needed.

"When the girl and her father have demanded security for whatever specified reasons, then I see no reason for a probe," Jaitley said.

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NCW member Nirmala Samant Prabhavalkar said: "We will send notice to the Gujarat government asking them to explain whether they followed the due process before orders were given to put a young woman under surveillance."

Prabhavalkar said the commission will also send a letter to the union home ministry seeking a probe into the matter.

Slamming the BJP over the episode, Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader Sitaram Yechury said snooping was not providing security.

"All these allegations are related to intrusion of privacy which is related to fundamental rights. The argument that the girl's father said so is untenable," Yechury said.

"The girl is an adult, an adult is an independent individual who enjoys all rights given by constitution. Such snooping is very fundamental intrusion in privacy of an individual," he said.

According to investigative reports on two websites, three key wings of Gujarat Police misused their powers to stalk an unmarried young woman from Bangalore in 2009 under orders from then Gujarat minister of state for home Amit Shah, who reportedly put the woman under surveillance for his "saheb".

Meanwhile, External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid Wednesday held out the spectre of an Orwellian society of totalitarian control creeping into India, an allusion to the snooping row.

"Is this the country we live in? Is this the kind of country we want to live in where government agencies are chasing you around, monitoring calls," Khurshid replied when asked by reporters on the snooping scandal.

"It is very easy to find out what people are doing, we're an open society. We should put restrictions on ourselves to ensure that that we don't interfere in the lives of ordinary people, private citizens that do not affect national security," Khurshid said on the sidelines of a conference.

"It should only be done in cases of paramount national importance," he added.

On the letter the father of the woman wrote to the NCW that he had requested Modi for surveillance on his daughter, Khurshid said the individual's rights were paramount in such situations.

"As far as snooping, stalking is concerned, I'm sorry, the father, the brother, the sister or the mother has no right. The individual is individual first and then comes the family," the minister said.

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First Published: Nov 20 2013 | 8:18 PM IST

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