Phone tapping case: Suspended DSP to be in police custody
Praneeth Rao said that he was asked to tap the mobile phones of almost all senior politicians from the BJP, TDP, BRS and Congress parties and of several IPS officers from both Telangana and Andhra Pradesh in the last six years
HYDERABAD: In continuation of its probe into the phone tapping case, police will take suspended DSP (SIB) D. Praneeth Rao alias Praneeth Kumar into seven-day police custody, towards which they filed a request petition in the court here on Thursday.
Praneeth Rao, who was arrested from his house in Rajanna Sircilla district on Tuesday, was interrogated till Wednesday evening before being produced before the court and remanded in Chanchalguda central prison.
During interrogation, he confessed that on instructions of his superior officers, he had tapped over 10 lakh mobile phones from 2018 to 2023 and had on December 4 destroyed most of the audio data from 17 hard disks placed in two war rooms of SIB building, his laptop, pen drives and the war rooms in Rajanna Sircilla and Warangal districts.
Praneeth Rao said that he was asked to tap the mobile phones of almost all senior politicians from the BJP, TDP, BRS and Congress parties and of several IPS officers from both Telangana and Andhra Pradesh in the last six years, Apart from them, he and his team had also tapped mobiles of family members of political leaders and enforcement directorate during the liquor scam and gave the recorded data to his superiors in SIB and other senior officials, police sources said. He collected huge amounts for tapping phones of realtors.
During the first phase of interrogation, Praneeth Rao disclosed the names of politicians, whose phones were tapped, and senior police officers who had directed him to execute the orders. It is a big chain. There is a massive nexus involving politicians and police officials. We have secured vital evidence and lists of names from his possession, a police official said.
“When he is in our custody, our IT cell and FSL will have technical evidence, phone numbers, Whatsapp chats between him, his superiors, the department big guns and politicians. There will be enough evidence to break the nexus and nail the culprits,” the officer said.
Every state police officer’s official number gets automatically tapped. Whereabouts of police officers, who are involved and have gone underground after Kumar’s arrest, will be known during the second and third phase of investigation. Most of the officials are from SIB, and some are those who have since retired, he said. The names of senior officials from SIB, who authorized the phone tapping using their powers, did so on the instructions of political leaders, have been revealed by the accused, police sources said.
Police are also probing into how Praneeth Rao, a 2007 batch sub-inspector, was promoted as DSP within 17 years despite not participating in a single Maoist operation.
“We had only a few hours to question him. We will be getting more clarity once he is in our custody. No one involved in criminal activities will be spared. Very soon we will be disclosing names of other accused officers, civilians and leaders directly or indirectly involved in the scam. Our next part of investigation will not just be based on his confession but the evidence that our teams have gathered so far,” S.M. Vijay Kumar, DCP (west zone) and in-charge officer of the case, told Deccan Chronicle.