On 29th March, the Hyderabad police submitted before the Nampally criminal court the remand report of the investigation by Telangana police into the alleged snooping on some political leaders by the previous Bharat Rashtra Samithi government. More details of the report were revealed on Friday (12th April). According to this, the Special Intelligence Bureau (SIB) had also seized cash from other political parties and illegally transported money belonging to the BRS in police vehicles. The report contains statements by three police officers arrested in this case.
Three police officers, formerly employed in the SIB, have provided statements to the Hyderabad police regarding the telephone tapping case. According to reports, they confessed during interrogation to conducting unauthorized surveillance on political figures, confiscating cash related to various political parties, and transporting cash using government vehicles before the assembly elections held on 30th November 2023.
The trio, comprising Inspector Gundu Venkat Rao, who formerly served in the SIB, Inspector of Task Force Kanumarla Srikanth, and Sub-Inspector of Task Force Sara Sai Kiran, reportedly confessed individually during their statements. They claimed to have acted under the instructions of former SIB chief T Prabhakar Rao, who is currently evading authorities, along with retired Deputy Commissioner of Police and Officer on Special Duty for the Task Force, P Radha Kishan Rao, and former Deputy Superintendent of Police in SIB, D Praneeth Kumar.
The names of these officers were disclosed by Radha Kishan Rao
The statement given by Radha Kishan Rao revealed information about the alleged involvement of three ministers, three BRS MLAs and three party MLCs in the phone-tapping case. In his recorded statement, Radha Kishan Rao, accompanied by his counsel, purportedly became emotional and revealed that he and former SIB chief T Prabhakar Rao had played a significant role in facilitating coordination among political leaders, law enforcement personnel, and intermediaries.
He provided detailed insights into their modus operandi, including the involvement of various political figures, intermediaries, and fellow police officials, before being remanded to judicial custody. As per Radha Kishan Rao’s confession, the police have identified government officers as key witnesses, and their names have allegedly been included in Radha Kishan Rao’s remand report.
Radha Kishan Rao purportedly admitted that initially, he complied with instructions from Prabhakar Rao but later followed directives from four prominent party leaders. He confessed to assisting an MLC, his childhood friend, by transporting substantial sums of money, including some obtained through extortion, during the Assembly elections.
What is the case?
During the second week of October, Srikanth and his team confiscated ₹3.35 crore from two individuals—Hanumanth Reddy and Prabhakar, associates of realtor Mahesh Reddy of AMR Infra at Banjara Hills—following instructions from Prabhakar Rao and Kumar, who had obtained specific information through phone tapping.
Likewise, Srikanth and his team seized ₹22 lakh from G Raj Kumar of Tarnaka, ₹15 lakh from Gadapa Naresh, ₹49 lakh from Kazil Maliq at Himayatnagar, and ₹1 crore from Mustafa Khan at Bhavani Nagar based on information provided by Prabhakar Rao and Kumar. These operations were overseen by Radha Kishan Rao, who was serving as OSD of the task force at the time.
What else was revealed in the remand report submitted to the court?
According to the remand report, Radha Kishan Rao directed his teams to use vehicles assigned to the task force to transport cash, aiding the BRS during election campaigns. Sub-Inspector Sai Kiran, who was then part of the Hyderabad Central Zone Task Force, acknowledged escorting ₹2 crore in cash using a government-owned Mahindra Bolero from various locations. He handed the cash over to Divya Charan Rao, a retired police officer working at Yashoda Hospital in Secunderabad, on two occasions—one from Ranigunj and another from Afzalgunj.
Additionally, Sai Kiran confessed to escorting cash belonging to former Indian Administrative Service officer and current BRS legislative council member P Venkat Ram Reddy, who is running for the Lok Sabha elections from the Medak parliamentary constituency. Reddy and his brothers are promoters of Rajapushpa Constructions, a real estate firm based in Hyderabad.
Attempt to destroy the evidence
Sai Kiran revealed that he transported ₹3 crores on three separate occasions and delivered the funds to Shiva Charan Reddy, also known as Charan, a neighbour of the BRS MLC. He did so under the instruction of Radha Kishan Rao, who provided him with a new iPhone for managing the covert cash transactions.
The day after the BRS lost the elections on December 3, Radha Kishan Rao tendered his resignation. As part of the alleged conspiracy, he reformatted his two mobile phones to erase evidence related to the clandestine operations, according to the remand report. On March 29, police arrested Radha Kishan Rao and confiscated his two cell phones.
BRS leader refutes the allegations
On Saturday (13th April), BRS leader Venkat Ram Reddy rejected all the charges levelled against him. He said, “The state government is leaking the remand reports to the media only to malign my image, as the Congress cannot take on me politically. The ruling Congress is deliberately seeking to tarnish my image as I am contesting the Lok Sabha elections from Medak and going to win the seat.”
More details of snooping from the sources
A police officer familiar with the investigation told the media more about the case history. He said that under the leadership of Prabhakar Rao, the former team of officials in the SIB established numerous war rooms across various locations in Nalgonda, Ranga Reddy, Khammam, Mahabubnagar, and Hyderabad. These rooms were utilized to conduct telephone tapping of numerous opposition leaders during the BRS regime.
Speculating more arrests in this case, he said, “These tapping centres were used to track the movement of the opposition leaders and snoop on their telephone conversations during the election time.”
The opposition seeks a serious probe
Bharatiya Janata Party state president G Kishan Reddy said that the state government should seek a high-level inquiry, if required by the Central Bureau of Investigation, into the alleged phone tapping by the previous BRS government. He said, “There are allegations that the SIB authorities during the BRS regime had tapped phones of big industrialists, traders and even celebrities and extorted big money from some of them.” He also expressed that Governor C P Radhakrishnan should intervene in the matter and get an inquiry done into the case.
In October 2022, the BRS government in the state had alleged that the BJP is poaching 4 BRS MLAs. Now, after the details revealed in the remand report, the BJP has said that the BRS could level these allegations only because its government in the state was involved in tapping the phones of the opposition leaders. BJP leader K Laxman said, “There are suspicions that the BRS government had tapped the phones of even top BJP leaders like B L Santosh. It requires a comprehensive probe by the CBI.”
Demands for an ED probe
Hyderabad-based lawyer U V Suresh Kumar has lodged a petition with the Enforcement Directorate, requesting an investigation into the telephone tapping case, citing alleged large-scale money laundering activities. He said, “The SIB authorities during the previous BRS regime indulged in extortion of money from various real estate firms, infrastructure companies and individuals by tapping their phones. The ED should probe into that angle.”
Allegations of tapping the phones of non-political persons
Senior Congress legislator and government whip Adi Srinivas asserted that during the previous BRS government, the SIB authorities had not only tapped the telephones of opposition leaders but also those of private individuals and businessmen. He said, “They even tapped my phone and I gave a complaint to this effect much before the assembly elections. We are ready for any lie-detector test. Are the BRS leaders ready?”
