Two days after The News Minute and NewsLaundry published their investigation, Kiran Bedi and the police officers involved in the 2003 surveillance of her daughter have yet to explain whether a lead in a rape case was ignored.
Hundreds of emails exchanged between Kiran and her confidantes reveal that while she was away on a prestigious United Nations posting in New York, she used her official contacts in the Delhi police to wiretap the phones of her daughter, Saina, and Saina’s then partner Gopal Suri, for at least four months, between August and November 2003. The emails—as well as audio recordings from the surveillance operation—further reveal that Saina and Gopal were engaged in an unscrupulous visa business.
Around this time, in October 2003, an unidentified man sexually assaulted a Swiss diplomat in her own car while his accomplice drove the vehicle around south Delhi’s streets. The assaulter reportedly lectured the diplomat about Indian culture and traditions before letting her go. The diplomat left India within days of the incident.
A month later, Ved Bhushan, one of the Delhi police officials surveilling Gopal and Saina, emailed Kiran. He had stumbled onto a lead about the Swiss diplomat’s sexual assault. Ved wrote:
“One Important discussion took place between Gopal Suri and one Shaji about the rape case of Swiss girl diplomat and Gopal Suri was asking him whether any doubt is about Shaji or not. And I had already asked worthy DCP/SB Shri Mishraji [Deputy Commissioner of Police Ujjwal Mishra] about this and he is taking phone call details about this person.”
What happened after is shrouded in mystery.
It is unclear whether Ujjwal conducted any further inquiries to determine Shaji’s identity or his possible connection to the sexual assault case. Rajendar Singh—the well-known police officer who was part of the team investigating the sexual assault case—said that the lead was never passed on to them. He told reporters that although the team briefly explored a link between the Swiss diplomat’s work at the embassy and the assault, they were unable to establish a connection.
The Swiss diplomat’s name also featured in a recorded conversation between Saina and Gopal when they discussed their efforts to establish connections with different embassy officials.
Gopal spoke of bribing a security guard at the Swiss embassy to get the name of a new visa section employee.
Within five days of Ved’s update, Kiran wrote to tell him that Saina had “moved forward.”
Since the story’s publication, Kiran has used every possible social media platform, including YouTube comments, to make a variety of assertions. None of these challenge the investigation’s findings. She has tweeted that the surveillance operation was “legit,” justified it as the action of a “concerned mother,” and sidestepped concerns about whether it was a misuse of her position.
She has suggested that the story was published to influence her daughter’s divorce proceedings. She has insinuated, on X, that reporters hacked into her email address and she has tagged the Delhi police for good measure. She has posted a voice recording in which she reads out loud a quote by Carl Bernstein—a journalist who built his career by exposing a former American president’s attempts at illegal surveillance—to lament the absence of “real journalism.”
All of this diverts attention from the story’s most troubling question: did Kiran and her colleagues from the Delhi police fail to follow up on a lead in a horrific crime.
After the story was published Kiran gave an interview to Times of India in which she was asked about the lead in the case involving the Swiss diplomat. Her response bordered on indifference. “I have no idea. I only asked police to rescue my daughter and nothing more.”
The reporters of the investigation sent all the police officials involved and Kiran detailed questionnaires before the story was published. Ved “couldn’t recall,” the surveillance operation and said that the email address in the emails they accessed was not his.
Kiran chose to ignore specific queries, including those about Ved’s email: “My reply to your mail. When I felt that my daughter was being innocently trapped and targeted (27 years ago ) I requested the police to save an innocent life. The police did its duty.”