Kavitha flashes bag full of mobile phones, 2 IMEI numbers don\'t match with ED report

Hyderabad: When BRS MLC K. Kavitha flashed several mobile phones kept in two large-sized transparent plastic pouches, the phone numbers and IMEI numbers that were apparent indicated that the two IMEI numbers did not match those mentioned by the ED in its remand report, revealed a source in a Central investigating agency.

One phone number visible was 6209999999 which had four IMEI numbers. The first IMEI had last five digits as 06445 and second had 60846, which did not tally with the ED remand report. But the third and fourth IMEI numbers having the last five digits as 13009 and 27672 matched with the ED remand report. The last five digits of the IMEI number of the second phone (8985699999) visible was 26241 which matched with the ED report, added the official who did not wish to be identified.

It is not clear whether Kavitha submitted her used phone numbers and IMEI numbers that were mentioned only in the ED remand report or submitted additional phones that were used by her later.

On her way to the Enforcement Directorate office for questioning in the Delhi liquor scam on Tuesday, BRL MLC Kalvakuntla Kavitha flashed several mobile phones kept in two transparent plastic pouches and announced she was going to hand them over to the ED, as investigators had previously questioned her about the alleged destruction of phones in order to erase traces of evidence.

Kavitha walked out of her car on Tuesday morning and displayed two sealed covers containing her used phones to dispute the ED’s charges against her in November 2022 that she had destroyed her old mobile phones. As she walked into the ED office, the air was filled with ‘Jai Kavitha Akka’ chants from her supporters.

Before surrendering her old phones to the ED, Kavitha sent a strongly worded letter to Jogender, the ED’s assistant director. “I may take this opportunity to point out a glaring act of malice on part of the agency when it has chosen to make insinuations against me in the prosecution complaint filed by some other accused in November 2022, alleging that certain phones stand destroyed. It is baffling to note as to how, why and under what circumstances, the agency made such allegations when I was not even summoned or asked any questions,” she asked. Raising the right to privacy issue, she alleged that the ED’s dissemination of false and misleading information that she had destroyed old mobile phones had damaged her reputation and that her political opponents were using it to slander her and her party.

“I am today submitting before your good self all the earlier phones that I may have used in the past, and as sought by you, which I could gather. These phones are submitted without prejudice to my right and contentions and larger contention whether a woman’s phone can be intruded, in the teeth of her right to privacy,” the letter reads.

Reminding that she was summoned by the  EC for the first time in March 2023, she said, "Therefore I have reasons to believe that accusations made against me in November 2022 were not only malafide, misconceived, but also prejudicial. The deliberate leakage of the false accusation to the public has led to a political slugfest, wherein my political adversaries have been flaunting the accusations, to accuse me of destroying the so-called evidence, and indulging in causing great harm to my reputation, and attempting to defame me, my political party as well as to lower my image in the eyes of the public at large,” Kavitha stated.

Charging the ED of becoming a privy and party to these acts, Kavitha said, “It is unfortunate that a premier agency like the ED is becoming a privy and party to these acts and sabotaging and sacrificing its sacrosanct duty of free and fair investigation at the altar of vested political interest. I therefore, hereby tender all these phones so as to dispel any notion or adverse impression that the agency is trying to create,” Kavitha added.