Pranab Mukherjee at receiving end of bug trick that has been tried on many
Pranab Mukherjee’s complaint of his office being bugged may have hit the headlines but the practice of planting snooping devices in high offices is not new.
By Vishwa Mohan, TNN |
NEW DELHI: Pranab Mukherjee’s complaint of his office being bugged may have hit the headlines but the practice of planting snooping devices in high offices is not new. There have been several instances of bugging in the past that include even offices of President , PM and home secretary.
In most cases, the snooping was done by Intelligence Bureau — the country’s internal intelligence agency — on directions of ‘political masters ’ of the day.
Such episodes have been chronicled by former IB joint director Maloy Krishna Dhar, who was instrumental in quite a few bugging exercises . A separate instance was recalled by former home secretary C G Somiah who after taking over in the ministry found that even his office in North Block was bugged.
Retired IPS officer Dhar, in his book Open Secret: India’s Intelligence Unveiled gave an account of how he along with another IB officer had “wired up” a few of Maneka Gandhi’s friends which produced “tonnes of appalling information” .Calling such acts “immoral and illegal” , he admitted he was asked to mount surveillance on Maneka after Sanjay Gandhi’s death.
Dhar narrated an episode of bugging former President Zail Singh and former PM V P Singh when they were in office in the 1980s.
His book recalled how bugging devices were planted inside Rashtrapati Bhawan when Zail Singh was president . The device, mounted on the top of PMO in South Block, picked up phone conversations from certain “treated phones” inside Rashtrapati Bhawan. The tapes were regularly made available to the then PM Rajiv Gandhi.
Similarly, he recalled an episode of snooping inside the PMO when V P Singh was PM. Calling it another “TechInt (technical intelligence) operational coup” , he wrote that he was asked to sweep PM P V Narasimha Rao’s office with bugging devices in 1992. He bumped into a forgotten micro-recording monitoring machine , planted on the phone of an aide to the PM during V P Singh’s regime.
In most cases, the snooping was done by Intelligence Bureau — the country’s internal intelligence agency — on directions of ‘political masters ’ of the day.
Such episodes have been chronicled by former IB joint director Maloy Krishna Dhar, who was instrumental in quite a few bugging exercises . A separate instance was recalled by former home secretary C G Somiah who after taking over in the ministry found that even his office in North Block was bugged.
Retired IPS officer Dhar, in his book Open Secret: India’s Intelligence Unveiled gave an account of how he along with another IB officer had “wired up” a few of Maneka Gandhi’s friends which produced “tonnes of appalling information” .Calling such acts “immoral and illegal” , he admitted he was asked to mount surveillance on Maneka after Sanjay Gandhi’s death.
Dhar narrated an episode of bugging former President Zail Singh and former PM V P Singh when they were in office in the 1980s.
His book recalled how bugging devices were planted inside Rashtrapati Bhawan when Zail Singh was president . The device, mounted on the top of PMO in South Block, picked up phone conversations from certain “treated phones” inside Rashtrapati Bhawan. The tapes were regularly made available to the then PM Rajiv Gandhi.
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Similarly, he recalled an episode of snooping inside the PMO when V P Singh was PM. Calling it another “TechInt (technical intelligence) operational coup” , he wrote that he was asked to sweep PM P V Narasimha Rao’s office with bugging devices in 1992. He bumped into a forgotten micro-recording monitoring machine , planted on the phone of an aide to the PM during V P Singh’s regime.
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