The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Saturday called for revenue minister Eknath Khadse’s resignation alleging that he was interfering in the investigation launched to check whether he has been in touch with underworld don Dawood Ibrahim. The Mumbai police, who looked into the said matter, found that no such calls were made to or from Khadse’s number to Karachi.
The allegations surfaced after Gujarat-based hacker Manish Bhangale claimed that he had documents showing call records of landline number registered under Dawood’s wife Mehjabeen Shaikh’s name with the address of his bungalow in Clifton area of Karachi, Pakistan. He claimed that he had the records by hacking into Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) website.
“When we heard of Bhangale’s work, we contacted him and verified the call records and how he had obtained it, especially the list of frequently called numbers. Once we were sure it was authentic, we decided to ask for an investigation against Khadse,” said AAP spokesperson Preeti Sharma Menon. While Mr Khadse had agreed that the number shown in the list was his own, he allegedly claimed that the number had not been in use since over a year.
“His claim is a lie. We had Manish get some details regarding Khadse’s number too and we found that there have been regular bills generated for said number with the last payment of '683.22 made in April 2016. He has also changed the SIM card in April claiming it to be damaged,” said Ms Menon.
However, the Mumbai police also looked into the matter. D.D. Padsalgikar, Mumbai police commissioner said, “We checked the call records for the number mentioned (belonging to Khadse) and found that no such calls were received or made in the period between September 2015- April 2016. There were no international calls or calls from Pakistan on the said number.”
Mr Bhangale, who was also present at the conference said that he worked on the project for more than four months. “I even visited Dubai thrice to get basic details regarding the gangster. I came across his landline numbers and address through a search on the worldwide web and then hacked into the site; the details I got matched with the information I had,” he said.
He added that he had confirmed Mr Khadse’s number which is in the frequent calling list through other mobile number identification apps. “The list has number of other ministers too, but I can’t make their names public as I don’t have any confirmation,” he said. He also claimed that, “four out of 10 frequently dialled numbers belonged to Indian politicians who held command (over) central politics”.
AAP leaders said that they had met with chief minister Devendra Fadnavis and presented all facts before him. “We have asked him to launch an investigation and he assured us that it will be done. The Mumbai police has been asked to look into it,” said Ms Menon. AAP has also demanded that for a fair investigation, Mr Khadse should be removed from office.
Mr Khadse had earlier claimed that, “The phone (number), which the AAP spokesperson is referring to, is not in use for the last one year. During this period, no international call was made from or received on this phone.” He had also said the number might have been cloned.
