SIB ups snooping on politicians, activists in Gujarat

With elections to the Gujarat assembly scheduled later this year, the state home department appears to have increased surveillance of people and organisations opposed to the government.

Sources in the police said the state intelligence bureau (SIB) has doubled the number of personnel assigned to monitories the activities of opponents of chief minister Narendra Modi, be it political leaders or activists campaigning for justice to riot victims. This is likely to increase as the assembly election draws closer, the sources added.

Every meeting or rally taken out in the state against the state government is watched by SIB sleuths who report on these activities to their bosses in the bureau. Every action of NGOs agitating for farmers' rights, Congress leaders or human rights activists are closely monitored by SIB sleuths, the sources said.
Whether it be Gulbarg society which was recently the venue of meetings held to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the 2002 communal riots, or a Congress rally, SIB personnel are present there in plainclothes in large numbers.

The sources said that many SIB sleuths were assigned to specific intelligence gathering tasks, mainly to gather information on the activities of Congress leaders and activities planned for the tenth anniversary of the riots. Police are believed to have acted on the basis of these inputs recently.

"To give an example, the exact number of people coming for a rally from a specific district was reported to the police department. The department acted on the input and detained the people as soon as they entered the city," an SIB sleuth said on the condition of anonymity.

However, a senior police officer said that political intelligence gathering is a routine matter for the SIB but the intensity with which it is done has, of late, increased. The political intelligence gathering will increase as the assembly elections draw nearer, the officer said.

Gujarat Congress president Arjun Modhvadia said that there was no doubt that that the SIB had increased political surveillance in the last few months. "I have written to the chief minister asking that this invasion of our privacy be stopped," Modhwadia said.