CPI(M) in Kerala today asked Chief Minister Oommen Chandy to clarify whether it was with his consent that the state police allegedly drew up a plan to gather e-mail details of several Muslim leaders, as reported by a Malayalam publication.

"The Chief Minister should give a rational explanation on this. He should clarify whether police had his consent before allegedly drawing up a plan to invade the privacy of individuals," CPI (M) state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan said in a statement today.

"No one should come in the way of police investigating cases with extremist links. But the government has no right to infringe on the civil liberties of those who have never been involved in any anti-national activities," Vijayan said.

The CPI(M) leader also took exception to the government's move to take a case against the publication in view of the report it carried in this regard.

Chandy had on Wednesday dismissed report that police had drawn up a list of prominent Muslim leaders and cultural personalities for hacking their personal e-mails, saying it was an attempt to create communal divide in the state.

Describing the report as "very unfortunate", he had said there was no directive to the police to hack or gather password of emails of any persons.

He had said the police had only sought to know the addresses of persons whose e-mail IDs were found in the possession of a person facing investigation.

The Malayalam daily in its report mentioned only the name of a particular community and omitted the names of persons from other communities, Chandy had said.

The report claimed that the SB-CID, the intelligence wing of the Kerala police, had drawn up a list of 258 people, which included some leaders of the Indian Union Muslim League, the second largest partner in the ruling Congress-led UDF, for hacking their e-mails.