New Delhi: The phones of Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Eknath Khadse, formerly with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), were allegedly tapped and kept under illegal surveillance for 67 and 60 days respectively, according to a Free Press Journal report.The leaders’ phones were allegedly tapped by the Maharashtra State Intelligence Department (SID) when it was headed by Indian Police Service (IPS) officer Rashmi Shukla. The tapping allegedly took place before the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) formed government in the state in November, 2019, while the BJP was in power.A senior home department official said that Raut’s phone was tapped on two occasions; once for seven days and then again for 60, and that both Khadse’s and Raut’s names featured in the SID’s request for phone tapping.“Importantly, the request was made by the SID by changing the names of Khadse and Raut during the BJP rule. Besides, the phones of Congress leaders Nana Patole, independent legislator Bachu Kadu, and former legislator Ashish Deshmukh were also tapped illegally,” the newspaper quoted the official as saying.As part of an ongoing investigation into the matter, Raut and Khadse submitted statements to the police on April 9 and April 7 respectively.Also read: Bombay HC Rejects Rashmi Shukla’s Petition To Quash FIR; Instructs Maha Govt To Give Seven-Day NoticeThe investigation came as a result of the findings of a three-member committee constituted by the MVA government to look into phone tapping. The committee was headed by the acting director-general of police (DGP) Sanjay Pandey, who is now the Maharashtra police commissioner.The panel had initially found that Shukla had allegedly played a role in the tapping of state Congress president Nana Patole’s phone and a case was registered against her for the same in Pune on February 25, according to the Indian Express.Thereafter, the committee also found her responsible for tapping Raut and Khadse’s phones and IPS officer Rajiv Jain, one of the members of the committee, filed a complaint against her under sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the Telegraph Act.Shukla, who is currently on central deputation in Hyderabad as additional director-general of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), was booked in the case in March.Speaking to the Express, an officer said that the police suspected that the phones of more leaders were tapped but the records of the same were subsequently destroyed.While the officer did not reveal the months in which the phones were tapped, he did claim that Shukla tapped the phones of Raut, Khadse and Patole for 15 days “in the last three months of 2019”. The Maharashtra assembly elections were held in October, 2019.In March, Patole had also filed a Rs 500 crore defamation suit against Shukla in a civil court in Maharashtra. The court had issued notice to Shukla and had asked her and others named in the suit to file their replies before April 12.