Crime Branch report against scribe over e-mail case

Friday, May 04, 2012: The Crime Branch team investigating into the scandal regarding the surveillance of e-mail ids belonging to minority community in the State, has on Friday filed report against Viju V Nair- reporter of Madhyamam weekly.
The probe team has also filed reports against Biju Saleem, suspended high tech cell SI, the first accused in the case, and Advocate Shanavas. The case arose from an article which appeared in a Malayalam weekly that the e-mails of 258 personalities belonging to the Muslim community were being tapped.
Madhyamam, had reported that email ids of leaders, activists, professionals, students and journalists from the minority community in Kerala were subjected to surveillance by the Special Branch of Kerala Police.
The report alleged that it was an attempt at religious profiling as out of the 268 e-mail accounts, 258 belonged to Muslims. It is said that none among them had any previous criminal backgrounds and so there was no clarity as to why they were put under surveillance.
The police found on preliminary investigation that Biju Salim was
behind the e-mail tapping episode. He had forged a letter for tapping wrongly saying this was being done as per demands of the Intelligence wing.