Calls from Dawood’s house: ATS to probe charges against Khadse

Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has directed the Anti Terrorism Squad (ATS) to probe the allegation that Revenue Minister Eknath Khadse received phone calls from fugitive gangster Dawood Ibrahim’s house in Karachi. “Both I and the Chief Minister wanted the matter to be investigated...So the Chief Minister has asked ATS to probe it,” Khadse said.

Khadse, the senior-most Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader in the state Cabinet, claimed that he had documents to prove that his mobile phone was hacked and added that he would hand over the evidence to the investigating agencies.

The beleaguered minister said the matter was already being investigated by the cyber cell and the police and the Director General of Police was supervising the probe. Meanwhile, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) spokesperson Preeti Sharma Menon had levelled the allegation against Khadse last week.

Khadse has sought to know why no questions were being asked about former AAP leader Anjali Damania’s alleged dubious land deals in Raigad district.

Menon had alleged, citing the call records obtained from a Pakistani telecom company by an Ahmedabad-based hacker, that calls were made from Dawood’s house in Karachi to a mobile number registered in Khadse’s name. Khadse had later rubbished the allegation, saying the number was not in use for the last one year.

The minister on Wednesday said he took the help of BJP MLC Gurmukh Jagwani, who has relatives in Pakistan, to verify Dawood's address cited in documents produced by AAP, but it proved to be “fictitious”.