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India launches probe into corporate phone-tapping scandal

Xinhua, June 19, 2016 Adjust font size:

India has launched a major probe into an alleged phone tapping scandal that targeted senior Ministers, top bureaucrats and corporate honchos between 2001 and 2006.

Sources said Sunday that the Indian Home Ministry ordered the probe recently in the wake of a complaint to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's office that corporate giant Essar Group had allegedly tapped phones of a number of senior ministers, top officials and industrialists over five years.

"The probe report will be handed over to the Prime Minister's Office," the sources said.

In fact, the complaint was launched by a Supreme Court lawyer Suren Uppal, alleging that Essar's former security Albasit Khan, whom he had once represented, had allegedly carried out the phone taps.

The Essar Group has refuted the charges, saying it's a victim of an extortion attempt.

However, India's main Congress party has slammed the government over the phone tapping scandal, with party spokesperson Manish Tewari saying "What it points to is the institutional manner in which the National Democratic Alliane was functioning." Endit