A year on, no headway in probe into Telangana phone tapping case
Out of the six accused, Prabhakar Rao and Shravan Kumar are absconding and are believed to be in the US
A year after the Telangana Police unearthed an alleged mobile phone tapping operation during the previous Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) regime that created a major sensation in the state politics, the investigation into the case has made no headway, people familiar with the matter said on Wednesday.
The phone tapping case first surfaced on March 10 last year, when D Ramesh, the additional superintendent of police (ASP) of the Special Intelligence Bureau (SIB), registered a complaint with the Panjagutta police in Hyderabad, accusing deputy superintendent of police (DSP) D Praneeth Rao, of illegal phone tapping, they added.
On March 13, 2024, police arrested Praneeth Rao and further investigations revealed a large-scale surveillance operation targeting various individuals, including political opponents, businessmen, journalists and even judges, they said.
Police have named six accused in the case — former SIB chief T Prabhakar Rao, Praneeth Rao,additional superintendents of police Mekala Thirupathanna and N Bhujanga Rao, former deputy commissioner of police T Radha Kishan Rao, and television channel owner N Shravan Kumar.
The accused were booked under sections 409 (criminal breach of trust), 427 (mischief), 201 (disappearance of evidence) and 120-B read with 34 (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code, besides section 3 of the Prevention of Damage to Public Property Act (PDPP Act), and sections 65, 66 and 70 of the Information Technology Act, police said.
Out of the six accused, Prabhakar Rao and Shravan Kumar are absconding and are believed to be in the US. The other four were arrested soon after the case was registered, but all of them are now out on bail. After securing bails, Praneeth Rao was released on February 14, Thirupathanna on January 27 and Bhujanga Rao and Radha Kishan Rao on January 30, police said.
A senior official of the state intelligence department, on condition of anonymity, said that on March 4, the Interpol issued red-corner notices (RCN) against Prabhakar Rao and Shravan Kumar, following the details submitted by the Telangana Police through the CBI, which acts as a nodal agency between the state police and Interpol.
The official said, “In their confession statements, the arrested policemen admitted that the phones of various people were tapped at the behest of the political bosses in the then BRS government. However, police have so far not questioned any of the BRS leaders, let alone then chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao.”
“We cannot initiate any action against the political bosses in the then government, unless we have concrete evidence. Once we are able to arrest the prime accused — Prabhakar Rao, who is absconding, we can question the BRS leaders involved in the case,” the intelligence official added.
THE CASE
Soon after the formation of the Congress government, led by chief minister A Revanth Reddy, on December 7, the intelligence department brought to the notice of the CM that data were missing from the computers and hard disks, and that old hard disks were replaced with new ones, people aware of the development said.
An internal probe was ordered and this led to the Panjagutta police registering a criminal case against Praneeth Rao, who was heading the special operations team (SOT) of the SIB on March 10. Following this, Panjagutta police arrested Praneeth Rao on March 13. Based on the information given by him, police arrested Radha Kishan Rao, Bhujanga Rao and Tirupathanna over a period of the next two weeks, police said.
The preliminary investigation revealed that the SIB had indulged in tapping of mobile phones of nearly 1,200 people, including that of political leaders, social activists, members of student organisations, business people, judges, lawyers and journalists, they added.
Praneeth Rao was part of Prabhakar Rao’s team in SIB as inspector since 2017 and got an out of turn promotion as DSP in March 2023. He was made in-charge of SOT ahead of the assembly elections in Telangana in November 2023, they said.
In his confession statement, Praneeth Rao admitted that he and his team of 56 members snooped on leaders of the opposition parties, and their funders, and intercepted vehicles transferring money, police said. “We prepared profiles of around 1,200 people, mostly political rivals of the BRS, with the help of a technological tool provided by a private firm. We used to report directly to Prabhakar Rao, who provided all necessary support,” the suspended DSP had told police in his confessional statement.
Praneeth Rao disclosed that during the 2023 elections, his team tapped several phones of supporters of opposition party candidates and also those who financially supported them. After the Congress came to power in December 2023, Prabhakar Rao resigned from his post. Before leaving office, he ordered SOT members to destroy all traces of political profiles and hard disks of the systems used for monitoring, Prabhakar Rao said in his confessional statement.
“As per his orders, I got the hard disks (around 50), documents and clandestine profiles destroyed after getting the closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras on the SIB premises switched off on the night of December 4,” Praneeth Rao had told police, adding that the destroyed hard disks and gadgets were dumped in the Musi river near Nagole.
Praneeth Rao was relieved from the SIB on December 13, 2023 and was later transferred to DCRB, Rajanna Sircilla district. He was suspended on March 4, 2024.
Similar confession was made by Radhakishan Rao in a statement to the Punjagutta police in April. He revealed that Prabhakar Rao, who was heading the SIB, selected a few officers belonging to his own caste, which was also the caste of the top BRS leadership, and used them in carrying out the snooping operation, police said.
Radha Kishan Rao, who retired from service on attaining the age of superannuation in August 2020, used the same caste card with the BRS government and got reappointed as officer on special duty (OSD) for a period of three years in the task force police of Hyderabad. Later, Prabhakar Rao used his services in the SIB, they added.
Radha Kishan Rao also admitted that the SIB had also indulged in transporting of money belonging to the ruling BRS during the 2023 elections, police said.
In January this year, the Telangana Police initiated the process of extradition of Prabhakar Rao from the United States to secure his custody in the mobile phone tapping case. Police sent a letter to Union ministry of home affairs seeking help to bring Prabhakar Rao back to India from the US.
During the course of investigation, lawyers representing Prabhakar Rao and Shravan Kumar submitted separate memos to the Hyderabad court in June last year, seeking anticipatory bail, stating that with they were in the US on medical grounds.