SIT grills suspended DSP Rao in Telangana phone tapping case

THe special investigating team up ( sit around) of the Telangana police force, probing the alleged telephony tapping that took place during the previous Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) regime, on Friday questioned suspended deputy superintendent of police D Praneeth Rao in the case, an official familiar with the development said.“Rao was questioned on Friday about the data in the retrieved hard disks, as deciphered by the forensic team,” the official said.The questioning of Praneeth Rao comes two days after the grilling of former Special Intelligence Branch (SIB) chief T Prabhakar Rao, the prime accused in the case, that came to light in March 2024.According to the FIR filed by the Punjagutta police in Hyderabad on March 10, 2024, 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.The preliminary investigation by the police revealed that the SOT had indulged in tapping of mobile phones of around 1,200 people, including that of political leaders, social activists, members of student organisations, business people, judges, lawyers and journalists.Praneeth Rao, who was arrested on March 13, 2024, came out on bail on February 14 this year. “The SIT police summoned him for further questioning on Friday to cross-check the replies given by Prabhakar Rao, who was questioned twice on June 9 and 11, with regard to the case,” an official privy to the development said.During the investigation, the SIT found that the SOT headed by Praneeth Rao had installed special leased lines and computer systems dedicated to illegal phone surveillance. “On the night of the assembly election results in Telangana on December 3, 2023, the SOT reportedly destroyed the tapping equipment and hard disks to eliminate evidence. The hard disks were allegedly destroyed inside a makeshift office in the SIB premises and then dumped into the Musi river,” the investigation revealed.Based on the statement given by Praneeth Rao during the initial investigation last year, the police conducted a search and were able to recover several hard disks from the Musi river. “The retrieved hard disks were sent for examination to the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL). Recently, SIT received the FSL reports, which confirmed the destruction and linked it to the phone tapping activities,” the official quoted above said.He said during the interrogation, Prabhakar Rao refuted the claims of Praneeth Rao and other arrested SIB officials that they had indulged in telephone tapping only on his instructions.He said he had never ordered any subordinate officer to engage in phone tapping nor had he asked Praneeth Rao to destroy the hard discs and other computer systems on the night of December 3. “He dodged answers to several questions,” the official said.In light of these contradictions, SIT is considering re-questioning Praneeth Rao to reconfirm his earlier statement and possibly confront him alongside Prabhakar Rao to reconcile the discrepancies, the official added.