Announcement: Demonstration To Demand CBI Enquiry Into Gujarat Stalking Tapes 18.11.2013 (Monday) 2 PM Jantar Mantar, New Delhi

JOIN
DEMONSTRATION
TO DEMAND
CBI ENQUIRY INTO
GUJARAT STALKING TAPES
18.11.2013 (MONDAY)
2 PM
JANTAR MANTAR

Illegal surveillance is a serious crime, a violation of Constitutional rights.
When done to a woman, especially to probe her personal life and relationships, it's often stalking - violence against women.
But what when an elected head of state, his Home Minister, and a posse of senior cops stalk a woman obsessively wherever she goes? When taxpayer's money is spent on cops following the woman around on flights, in hotels and malls, when her phone is illegally tapped? Do we even have a word to describe this kind of terrifying, arbitrary misuse of state power?

The 'Saheb' tapes reveal that Gujarat Home Minister Amit Shah monitored the snooping on the woman by his top cops, reporting every movement of hers to 'Saheb'. Saheb himself, it is revealed, had his own surveillance mechanism to verify the cops' diligence.
Who is 'Saheb'? The tapes don't say. But the defence trotted out by the BJP has actually revealed more than the tapes do. They are citing the statement issued by the woman's father, that the surveillance was actually a favour done by 'family friend' Modi for the woman's 'safety', and this 'family matter' should not be policiticised.
The father's statement actually confirms that the tapes are genuine and 'Saheb' is in fact, the Gujarat CM, Modi. This is an admission of - and a lame excuse for - an appalling violation of constitutional entitlements of privacy and personal freedom.
The BJP's defence is painting a graphic picture of their notions of 'women's safety', where illegal surveillance of a daughter at state cost, personally monitored by the head of state and Home Ministry, is perfectly in order for a father to expect and receive. It is another matter whether the father's explanation actually explains the chilling transcripts, where the Home Minister talks vengefully of jailing a young man the woman is meeting, 'for as long as Vanjara is jailed.'
The Home Ministry of the Gujarat Government was already implicated in a communal pogrom and a series of staged encounter killings. And now we have evidence of this illegal stalking of a woman. The Government that could not respond to Ehsan Jafri's desperate SOS calls now tells us that they put their crack police corps and Home Ministry at the service of a 'worried father'.
The truth about this chilling instance of state-sponsored stalking must be known. The conspiracy of silence around it must be broken, and patriarchal defences of it may be welcomed by the khaps and the Sangh's moral policing mobs, but never by common citizens and women.
Women's groups, student groups, and other democratic organisations will come together on Novemver 18th (Monday) at 2 pm, Jantar Mantar, to demand a CBI enquiry to unearth the truth behind the 'Saheb' tapes. All are welcome with banners and placards.

- AIDWA, AIPWA, ANHAD, CPA, BMMA, AISA, and many other groups and individuals.

Please inform Mansi at 9818809018 or mansidev@gmail.com if you would like to endorse this call for the demonstration.