Phone-tapping Equipment Seized from Kondapur Firm

Hyderabad: The special investigation team (SIT) probing the phone-tapping operation of the BRS government last week seized three servers, hard disks and five mini devices intact from the premises of Converge Innovation Labs in Kondapur that were reportedly used in the illegal enterprise.

Information about the devices that were used by the previous BRS government’s Special Intelligence Bureau (SIB) was reportedly revealed by Paul Ravi Kumar, a director of a private spyware gadgets firm and a technical expert, during his questioning by the SIT.

Sources said he had helped SIB officials during the BRS government tenure to procure sophisticated technical devices worth crores that were used in the phone-tapping operation.

Sources claimed that the SIT collected technical evidence related to phone tapping from Ravi Kumar’s house and company office in the city and Bengaluru. The SIT has sent the gadgets to the Forensic Science Laboratory and the special cybercrime unit set up at Jubilee Hills as part of the investigation, sources disclosed.

The SIT also recorded the statement of senior manager Ragi Anantha Chari and software engineer Oleti Sitaram Srinivas and a woman working in Ravi Kumar's company.

Apart from this, sources disclosed that a chargesheet was filed against four senior police officials who were posted in twin cities.

Sources said the police had rejected a suggestion to hand over the investigation, currently being supervised by senior IPS officer S.M. Vijay Kumar, the west zone DCP, to the CBI.

Meanwhile, the SIT is awaiting developments with regard to the return of former SIB chief T. Prabhakar Rao, who is in the US reportedly for treatment of cancer, and Shravan Kumar, MD of I-News, who is absconding.

Police are making efforts to get the two to surrender, having filed the chargesheet on the phone-tapping operation and a court rejecting the bail petitions of officers involved with it.

Shravan Kumar's alleged request for anticipatory bail was reportedly dismissed, sources said.

Prabhakar Rao is reportedly coming under pressure to return, from the family members of Radha Kishan Rao, Bhujanga Rao, D. Praneeth Rao and Thirputanna from the day of their arrest. They believe that the accused would be freed on bail after the return of the duo.

Reports said that Prabhakar Rao was trying for an extension of his visa but would find it difficult in view of the look-out notice against him, sources said. “Prabhakar Rao and Shravan Kumar are buying time but they cannot escape for long,” sources said.