New Delhi: The year was 2003. Decorated IPS officer Kiran Bedi was serving as civilian police adviser in the United Nations’ department of peacekeeping operations in New York. Rumours reached her that her daughter Saina, then 27 years old and living in Hauz Khas, was romantically involved with Delhi-based hotelier Gopal Suri.
Bedi also learnt that the two were ‘leveraging’ Bedi’s public profile to further a “money-making scheme that involved people who sought international visas”.
Around this time, according to a report by The News Minute and Newslaundry Bedi “used her official connections within the Delhi police to mount an aggressive surveillance operation on the couple”. The report suggests that Delhi police officers “wiretapped” Saina and Suri’s phones “for at least four months, from August to November 2003”.
In the absence of any record of an official police complaint or active investigation that would justify surveillance, Bedi is now fending off allegations that she used her influence to settle a “personal affair”.
“There is no way this was done without the top officers knowing about it, given the scale,” a retired police officer who did not wish to be named told ThePrint.
The insinuation casts a shadow on the 1972-batch IPS officer’s image which made her a household name and later propelled her entry into politics. India’s first woman IPS officer and a recipient of the Ramon Magsaysay Award, Bedi was BJP’s chief ministerial candidate in Delhi in 2015 and later served as lieutenant governor of Puducherry from 2016 till 2021.
Besides casting aspersions on Bedi, the report also puts in the dock former Delhi police officers, suggesting that they may have come across a possible lead in the unsolved rape case of a Swiss diplomat in 2003 during the “surveillance operation” but failed to act on it.
When ThePrint reached Bedi for comment, she insisted that her “actions were driven by an urgent need to intervene and protect” her daughter. She, however, did not deny the charge that a “surveillance operation” was carried out in 2003 after she approached Delhi police—though she maintained she did so in her personal capacity and not as an IPS officer.
“I suspected that my daughter might be unknowingly entangled in questionable activities. I feared that she was being taken advantage of,” Bedi told ThePrint Wednesday, adding that while in New York she felt her daughter Saina was “trapped”.
Saina is said to have been initially unaware that Suri was already married. Suri, Delhi police sources privy to the matter suspect, was using her for her mother’s clout.
“I was scared that she was being emotionally exploited and possibly otherwise. So, I approached the police with these concerns, and they acted upon my concerns, as they are mandated to do,” said Bedi, who took voluntary retirement from the IPS in 2007.
A source close to Bedi, while questioning the timing of these revelations, suggested it may have something to do with Saina’s ongoing divorce case. Saina married author Ruzbeh Bharucha in 2005. The two have been party to divorce proceedings for about six years now.
Saina and Suri’s affair, said the source, lasted for about a year and ended towards the end of 2003. Asked about it, Bedi said police officers and her friends helped her convince her daughter to end the relationship with Suri. Bedi, said the source close to her, was at the time fighting on two fronts—to convince her daughter to end the relationship with Suri, and to stop her from getting embroiled in the “visa racket” allegedly linked to Suri.
Sources say Bedi learnt that the couple was trying to procure visas using her name and that of her NGO—India Vision Foundation—and asked top officers to surveil them.
The surveillance is said to have ended after Saina and Suri parted ways. Saina is now a permanent trustee of the India Vision Foundation, one of the two NGOs founded by Bedi.
ThePrint reached Saina Ruzbeh Bharucha and Gopal Suri but had not received a response by the time of publication. This report will be updated if and when a response is received.
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Kiran Bedi & ‘wiretapping’ operation
Defending her decision to approach senior police officers with a request to surveil her daughter and Suri, Bedi told ThePrint, “It is entirely lawful and legitimate for any citizen to approach the police when there is a reasonable apprehension of potential criminal activity.”
She suspects that her exchanges, including with police officers, dating back to 2003 may have been leaked after her email address was hacked last year, and that she has lodged an official complaint with the Delhi police about it.
“I acted not only as a concerned individual, but as a mother. I had genuine and serious concerns that my daughter was being manipulated by a man with a dubious background,” she said. Adding, “…the decision to act on the complaint, and the manner of doing so, rested entirely with the department..”
But Bedi did not indicate if she lodged an official complaint that would have resulted in an FIR and lent any legitimacy to the “surveillance operation”.
The source close to Bedi, cited earlier, said the relationship between mother and daughter had soured to a point where Bedi said she wouldn’t help if Saina were to land in trouble.
Asked about the “wiretapping operation”, a Delhi police officer who worked closely with Bedi told ThePrint on condition of anonymity, “Madam (Bedi) was away and this man (Suri) trapped Saina. He was already married but Saina didn’t know of it when they started dating. Madam tried to convince her but Saina just wouldn’t listen. Things were getting out of hand, they were using Madam’s name to try to get visitor visas across embassies and Madam came to know of it because they also tried to do it in Swiss and German embassies.”
“Madam had told officers that what Suri was doing was human trafficking and if not stopped, Saina would be in big trouble,” said the source.
“Bedi approached top officers at that time for assistance and a team was wiretapping the calls. They were also keeping tabs on who the couple was meeting. They (Saina and Suri) took money from people but it is unclear how much of it was returned and how many visas they actually managed to get in her (Bedi’s) name,” said another Delhi police officer who did not wish to be named.
The surveillance was done through a private lab and top officers of the Delhi Police Crime Branch and Special Branch were aware of it, it is learnt.
Asked about cassette tapes containing “recorded material from the surveillance” cited in the media report, the source close to Bedi said, “There is no official place where cassettes in such unofficial wiretapping matters are kept. However, it is known that they were leaked with malicious intent. Saina is undergoing an ugly divorce as well.”
“Ideally the tapes are preserved and kept in police storage, in matters pertaining to national security and public safety in active investigations. However, since this is a personal matter, these may have been returned to the party,” said the source close to Bedi.
Asked if Delhi Police returned the taped to her, Bedi termed the suggestion as “blatant lies”.
The source close to Bedi, cited earlier, said, “Kiran Bedi would have never collected the tapes and the chain of custody has changed over the years.”
Speaking to ThePrint, multiple Delhi police officers pointed out that protocols are in place for wiretapping with prior approval, but they seem to have been ignored in this case.
A second retired Delhi police officer who did not wish to be named remarked, “At the time, wiretapping was done casually. Rules or protocols weren’t followed. Telecom authorities were informed, and a parallel connection was used to listen to or record calls.”
“We had Indian Telegraph Act. For central probe agencies like CBI, permission has to be sought from home secretary. For Delhi police, permission has to be obtained from home secretary of Delhi government. In cases of urgency, Delhi police commissioner or joint commissioner can grant permission as well. Permission for tapping must have come from the senior ranks, but the real question here is whether it fits the criteria for wiretapping? There is no need for an FIR here but the matter has to be something that pertains to national security and public safety,” a serving police officer said on condition of anonymity.
Swiss diplomat rape case
The media report also hints at what could be a previously unexplored angle in the unresolved probe into the 2003 rape of a Swiss diplomat in Delhi.
According to it, one of the officers involved in the “surveillance operation” referred to a possible lead about the case in an email to Bedi. The officer said Suri and one Shaji had an “important discussion” about the case, and that the officer subsequently “informed a senior”. Among the recordings accessed by The News Minute, one reportedly includes a conversation between Saina and Suri where the Swiss diplomat’s name came up.
But Delhi police sources privy to the probe into the case said they were never informed about the “Shaji” angle. “This is the first time I am hearing this,” then assistant commissioner of police Rajender Singh, part of the investigating team, told ThePrint.
At least three other officers privy to the probe too denied any knowledge of it.
“Everyone knew of the wiretapping, it’s weird how we didn’t know about this person (Shaji),” said one of the three officers.
As many as 20 teams were formed to crack the case, it is learnt.
“It was a one of its kind investigation. Several people were questioned. We had inputs that one of them was a plumpish guy, who wasn’t wearing a vest, it appeared that he had just taken a bath. He is the one who raped her. The other, who was driving the car, was stout. Descriptions hinted that they might have just come out of the swimming pool but nothing substantial was ever found,” said a Delhi police officer who did not wish to be named.
Another police source added, “Bedi had nothing with to do with the Swiss diplomat rape case. The officers who were aware of it should have informed the top officers and they should have taken some action.” The media report in question does mention that Ujjwal Mishra, then DCP, was informed but it is not known whether it amounted to any lead.
Mishra died in 2010, the year he retired as a joint commissioner of police.
Asked about it, Bedi told ThePrint, “…my request to the police was specific and strictly limited to the safety of my daughter. I was not involved in any other investigations and was not informed of unrelated leads.”
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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