By IANS,
Shimla: Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh Thursday equated the state’s police during the previous BJP regime with Gestapo, the German state secret police during the Nazi regime.
“The police are expected to be impartial in their dealings. However, during the tenure of the previous government, the police were virtually converted into Gestapo,” Singh said in his budget speech.
He said some of the police personnel were involved in unauthorised phone tapping and making fabricated cases.
“I myself was a victim of one such fabricated case,” he said.
Earlier, the chief minister accused the Prem Kumar Dhumal-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government of tapping 1,371 phones in its tenure. Of these, he said the home department gave permission to tap only 170 phones.
Official sources said conversations of politicians, mainly the Congress leaders when they were in opposition, and bureaucrats were recorded illegally.
The computers in the CID and vigilance bureau offices were seized on the night of Dec 24-25, 2012, hours before Virbhadra Singh assumed charge as chief minister.