Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh on Friday accused the previous state government, led by former Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, of having used government machinery to illegally snoop on the phones of erstwhile opposition leaders. Deshmukh added that the cyber cell of the state police department has been directed to conduct a probe into the matter. If this allegations turn out to be true in the probe, the situation would beg for serious attention since it would mean that the Devendra Fadnavis regime used state machinery to illegally spy on opposition leaders. What's more, the complaints also point to the fact that some officers, during the Fadnavis regime, had allegedly been sent to Israel to study a new snooping software. However, Devendra Fadnavis later on Friday denied these allegations, saying, "Phone-tapping of opposition leaders is not the tradition of Maharashtra.

Source: dna January 24, 2020 10:30 UTC