Hyderabad: The city police has filed a chargesheet in a court against four senior police officials in connection with the sensational phone tapping case under the previous Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) government in Telangana. The illegal snooping case has shocked many as allegations of illegally spying on political leaders and activists in the state have surfaced.
The Hyderabad police cited Deputy Superintendent of Police D Praneeth Rao, Additional Superintendents of Police Bhujanga Rao, and Tirupathanna and Former Deputy Commissioner of Police (Task Force) Radha Kishan Rao as the accused in the case. They have been accused of illegally tapping phones of activists and opposition members, including current Telangana chief minister Revanth Reddy, who was then in the opposition as the state Congress chief.
The entire issue of illegally phone-tapping by SIB officials came to light after the BRS government lost the Telangana Assembly elections to the Congress last year in December. After the new government came into place, the matter came to light after an official began destroying evidence and a case was registered in March.
The Hyderabad police also framed charges against two absconding persons – former chief of the Special Intelligence Bureau (SIB) Prabhakar Rao, and senior journalist Sravan Kumar. The case was booked on March 10 by the Punjagutta police and investigation began then. DSP Praneeth Rao had damages hard disk of 17 computers used to snoop onto journalists, politicians, businessmen, judges and bureaucrats.
The probe into the phone tapping case has also thrown up some murky information for investigators. Telangana police officials also revealed that many women were allegedly blackmailed and victimized by a constable assigned to do the phone tapping job during the previous Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) government.
Sources said that the constable who was working in Nalgonda had victimized and blackmailed around 40 women after overhearing their phone conversations. No action was initiated against him because he was close to a top cop in Nalgonda district where a facility was set up to tab phones of certain politicians. So far in the case, senior cops including an ex-Deputy Commissioner of Police have been arrested.
Apart from that, Congress MLA from Achampet Vamshi Krishna on May 28 wrote to the Telangana director general of police (DGP) claiming that his phone was tapped by Special Intelligence Branch (SIB) officers on instructions of an ex-MLA. He alleged that others in his constituency were also under surveillance.
Vamshi Krishna, who is also the District Congress Committee (DCC) president for Nagarkurnool, claimed that his phone was tapped allegedly under the instructions of a former MLA “in collusion with certain police officers” of the SIB from Hyderabad and Achampet town.
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