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'I could not imagine that a CM could send such frivolous, silly SMSs to a girl'Bhupendra Chaubey CNN-IBN | 23-Nov-2013 23:45 PM Suspended IAS officer Pradeep Sharma has moved a notice in the Supreme Court asking for the CBI to probe into the tapes which allegedly showed Gujarat government used state police to conduct surveillance on a woman. Here is the complete transcript of the conversation between Bhupendra Chaubey for CNN-IBN and Pradeep Sharma, the bureaucrat involved with the snooping controversy featuring Amit Shah and, possibly, the BJP's Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi: CNN-IBN: Hello and welcome to the CNN-IBN Special. Over the last couple of weeks, there have been several questions and allegations levelled against the Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and his key aide Amit Shah in the snooping controversy. Supporters of Modi and Amit Shah say that he is a victim and that he is not a culprit. With me is the man who perhaps has some of the answers and who can help us understand what exactly is happening in the state of Gujarat as far as the snooping row is ocncerned and as far as the credentials of the girl who was referred to as Mansi are concerned. Pradeep Sharma, a senior officer from Gujarat. Someone who has been to jail as well because there were some serious allegations levelled against you. Thank you very much for joining us, Pradeep Sharma. Let me begin by asking: it is being said that this girl Mansi was in a relationship with you and the reason that you were sent to jail is because the girl's parents complaints against you to the Gujarat CM. Pradeep Sharma: First of all I am not going to name anyone in this interview. There was a relationship that was absolutely professional in nature. The architect was engaged by us to develop Tehelgani. She completed the job, we developed a friendship. When I say we developed a friendship, I mean the family of the architect and myself developed a friendship. We kept on interacting regularly and that's about it. So all these allegations about my having a relationship with her are absolutely wrong. CNN-IBN: The BJP spokespersons have been saying that there was a complaint against you by the girl's parents to the Gujarat Chief Minister, that you were harrassing the girl. Sharma: I will kill this story by making only one statement. The day I was arrested and taken to police custody, the 6th of January, 2010, my first meal, my first dinner, was brought by the parents of the architect. If I was a threat they would not have brought food for me and made me talk to the architect on the phone. She spoke to me and she said she was very upset about what the CM had done and she was going to take it up. But I told her she need not do anything. This was my battle and I would take it up. CNN-IBN: You were the Collector in the Kutch region, you were going about discharging your duties, you had a clean record, no blemishes for the first few months. What suddenly happened for you to be looked at as a threat to the honesty mechanism that was at work in the state? Many felt that you were indulging in acts of corruption. What went wrong for Pradeep Sharma? Sharma: There were no allegations against me until 2010. I don't know where these cases of corruption have come from. Even in the cases filed against me, not a single case of corruption has been filed except the case of the mobile phone, which is a wrong charge because time and again I have been paying money to whoever... You should be aware of one thing. Nobody in Gujarat has just one mobile phone. All officers have different phones under different names because everyone knows that the government is snooping. I had different phones too. CNN-IBN: So you were worried that perhaps your phone was being tapped and conversations were being listened to. Sharma: I realised that phones were being tapped only in 2008, when I was moved out of Rajkhot. Coming back to your question, you said they had a perception that I was a corrupt, inefficient blah blah... Mr Modi is an efficient Chief Minister. Would he have posted an inefficient, corrupt man as Municipal Commissioner of Jamnagar, and followed this with posts like Collector Kutch, Collector Rajkot, which is one of the largest districts in the state, and Municipal Commissioner, Bhavnagar? CNN-IBN: Let me come back to this girl, now there is a tape which is out. There is a tape with a recording of a conversation between Amit Shah and another senior IPS officer of Gujarat who is now in jail, G L Singhal. This tape shows that Mr Singhal and Mr Amit Shah were in direct touch because Amit Shah was asking Mr Singhal to keep a direct tab on the movement of the girl. Now you say that this tape proves your case that you have been framed. What is the relation between these two things? Sharma: Sometime in the year 2008, I had got an anonymous letter forwarding a link. The link led to an obscene clip involving the architect which I was shocked and surprised to see. Not realising that my phones were bring tapped, I had spoken about it over the phone. CNN-IBN: What did you say? When you say you spoke about this clip on the phone, what did you talk about and who you were speaking to? Sharma: I will not be able to give you the name because I don't remember who I was talking to, but I told this to two or three friends, saying there is this obscene clip of the architect, and probably the CM thought it involved him too. CNN-IBN: So you believe that the reason you were arrested was that a fear that Mr Modi had, that you had some information about this alleged relation which Mr Modi had with this girl. Sharma: Absolutely correct. And I will mention one point, I will take this point further. When I was arrested not once was I summoned by the police to record my statement. Not once was I given a notice or a hearing. They come at 5:30 in the morning, arrest me and search my house. So please tell me, when Mr Amit Shah was arrested on a murder charge by the CBI, he was summoned to the office to record his statement. Why was I not summoned? Why the surprise element, why did they search my house? What were they searching for? That Mr Modi should answer. CNN-IBN: I just want to be absolutely clear. I want to understand this from you. You are saying that the BJP Prime Ministerial candidate was in a relationship with this girl, on whose movements Mr Amit Shah was keeping tabs. Sharma: I have very categorically stated in my earlier petition, from which the Supreme Court has asked me to withdraw the paragraphs where I had stated that I was informed by the girl that she had visited the CM's residence in 2006. I have reason to believe again that the CM must have thought she might have made a clip which she is sharing with me - which was not correct information. CNN-IBN: Do you have any proof to back this claim? About the fact that this girl was involved in a relationship with the Chief Minister? Sharma: About what? CNN-IBN: About the fact that this girl was in a relationship with the CM. Sharma: I am not saying she was in a relationship with the CM. But this is the perception of the CM. CNN-IBN:: That's an important point. About how the CM would have the perception that you know something about this alleged relationship that you are talking about between this girl and him. Was your phone being tapped? Sharma: The girl used to confide in me a lot. The CM made her call me when I was Collector, Rajkot. She told me that he wanted her to move from Banaglore to Gujarat, and he wanted her to find a project and he had told her to please get in touch with Pradeep Sharma, to ask him to find a project and that he would fund it. I could not identify a project in Rajkot. The only project I had was for Mani Mandir, the dilapidated palace building. She said she was not interested in heritage, and it was over. When I moved to Bhavnagar, she visited me and she showed me the SMSs sent from the CM's phone, and she very categorically told me that he wanted her to do a project here, and could I kindly help her with the project. She visited Alam. CNN-IBN: She had personal SMSs on her phone from the Chief Minister. Sharma: That's right, and frivolous silly SMSs. You cannot imagine, absolutely trash and frivolous SMSs. I could not believe that a CM could... CNN-IBN: Like... like...like... Sharma: Chai piya? Khakra khaya.. Bhavnagar ka khatiyaan khaya.. that kind of thing. CNN-IBN: Did you ever ask her about this? Sharma: I did. She told me. CNN-IBN: What did she say? Sharma: She did not go to the extent of calling it a relationship. But she did tell me she was extremely close to the CM. CNN-IBN: But there is nothing wrong in being close to the CM. Sharma: A clandestine visit is something that is wrong. A clandestine visit for an overnight stay at the CM's residence is wrong. CNN-IBN: Why do you say that there was a... Again I ask you.. All these statements that you are making sir, do you have any proof that this girl had made a clandestine visit in the middle of the night to the CM's residence? Sharma: Mr Chaubey, I am a bureaucrat. If somebody is narrating something to me, I am not going to snoop and record it. I am just narrating what she told me. CNN-IBN: So you are saying that this girl used to come to you and confide in you and tell you things. Why would anyone come to you and confide in you if there was no close equation between you and her? I want to know what the nature of the equation between you and the girl was. Sharma: When the garden was being developed, she became very friendly. She used to come and discuss all kinds of problems. Professional problem, social problems, marriage problems, friends' problems, family problems and I was a kind of a guide, soothing her, helping her out with her situation. She came and told me that she was eternally grateful that I had introduced her to the CM, because that was the turning point in her life and she would never forget this. When I moved out of Bhuj, there was a disconnect. But whenever we met, she would share information. It started reducing when I moved to Rajkot. When I moved to Bhavnagar, she wanted to make it a point, probably to show me she's really connected. She showed me the SMSs. So I don't know the answer to why she was confiding in me. She was only trying to show she was important, that's my belief. CNN-IBN: The reason I am putting this question to you is that there are a lot of BJP leaders who tell me that this is a case where Pradeep Sharma himself was involved and in a relationship with this girl, and was upset with the growing proximity between the CM and the girl, and therefore the girl's parents went to the extent of complaining to the CM about Pradeep Sharma, and therefore you are the culprit and not the victim. Sharma: The answer to your question is the fact that the parents of the girl visited me in the police station on the first day of my arrest, brought my dinner, and let me talk to the girl. That is the answer. It answers all your questions. CNN-IBN: So a final question to you. Are you suggesting that the CM of Gujarat did a lot of favours to this girl's family because of the growing equation which was developing between him and the girl? Sharma: If you have to believe what I am saying, in the year 2006, he had offered her a small amount and she had declined it. She told me that she was not talking to the CM for such crumbs. I believed, as I read in newspaper reports in 2008, that they put up a company and they benefited from Government contracts. I am not sure of the information, but I do know that from a second-hand Zen car in 2006, they had moved to a high category luxury car. CNN-IBN: Thank you very much, sir. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send an email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/greenyouth. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
