Thirupathanna and N Bhujanga Rao, the accused men, were detained for planning to conduct unlawful surveillance with another police officer.
According to a PTI story on Monday, the Hyderabad Police have detained two additional senior officers in relation to the Telangana phone tapping case.
The issue concerns the alleged surveillance of multiple individuals’ phones, allegedly including Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy, during the previous year’s Assembly elections, as well as the destruction of specific computer systems and government data.
In response to a report submitted by D Ramesh, an additional superintendent of police with the Special Intelligence Bureau, D Praneeth Rao, a suspended deputy superintendent of police, was taken into custody on March 13.
Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police Thirupathanna and Additional Superintendent of Police N Bhujanga Rao were detained on suspicion of conspiring with Praneeth Rao, the police said in a statement on Saturday, according to PTI.
“The two police officers have admitted to participating in the reported crimes during questioning. These crimes include conspiring to unlawfully monitor private individuals by creating false profiles and abusing their official positions; to cause evidence to vanish by damaging public property to hide their involvement in collusion with D Praneeth Kumar, also known as Praneeth Rao, DSP [under suspension], and some other individuals,” the release stated.
As per The Hindu, the pair of police officials have been placed under judicial detention till April 6.
Also Read | Pakistan’s second-largest naval air base under terrorist attack
Former intelligence official allegedly involved
Praneeth Rao’s statement was included in the police’s remand report that was presented to a Hyderabad court. According to Deccan Chronicle, Rao claimed that he participated in the purported phone tapping and data destruction on former Special Intelligence Bureau chief T Prabhakar Rao’s orders.
Praneeth Rao stated, “Prabhakar Rao told me to get engaged in phone tapping, he would take care of my promotion.” “Tapped phone numbers from Thirupatanna and N Bhujanga Rao.”
He said that they had “hundreds of political leaders’ phones tapped and different parties’ fund-raising monitored” during the Assembly elections. Businessmen were among those whose phones were tapped, according to Praneeth Rao.
He also acknowledged that he used a cutter to destroy the main device and the hard drives holding the spying data. Praneeth Rao claimed to have “broken hard disk devices and thrown them in the Musi river, burned documents in two war rooms.”
According to Bhujanga Rao, the Bharat Rashtra Samithi leaders’ numbers were tapped. According to the remand report, “Praneeth Rao and Tirupatanna received the numbers that [former task force deputy commissioner of police] Radha Kishan Rao provided.”
Also Read | Congress digs out Kangana Ranaut’s ‘soft porn star’ remark, hits back
Claims directed at Praneeth Rao
Six days after Praneeth Rao was suspended as the deputy superintendent of police for “gross misconduct” and “abuse of official position,” the Punjagutta Police filed a criminal case against him on March 10.
According to D Ramesh’s complaint, Praneeth Rao exhibited a troubling pattern of behavior from 2018 to 2023 while serving as the Special Intelligence Bureau’s deputy superintendent of police and then as an inspector. This was published by The Hindu.
He claimed that Rao was involved in disassembling and erasing data from up to 42 hard drives and swapping them out for new ones. Ramesh further said that on the evening of December 4, 2023, the day Bharat Rashtra Samithi lost the Assembly elections, Rao turned off the cameras and disassembled and destroyed equipment holding data.
Under several pertinent provisions of the Indian Penal Code, including criminal conspiracy, tampering with evidence, criminal trespass, and breach of trust, police had filed a case. Additionally, cases under the Information Technology Act and the Prevention of Destruction of Public Records Act of 1984 were filed.
