Retired DCP held in telephone tapping case in Telangana
P Radhakishan Rao, the retired Indian Police Service (IPS) officer, was in the evening produced before a Hyderabad court, which sent him to 14-day judicial remand
A former deputy commissioner of police (DCP) of Hyderabad police task force was on Friday arrested in connection with the case of phone tapping and destroying certain computer systems and official data during the previous Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) government in Telangana, people familiar with the matter said.
P Radhakishan Rao, the retired Indian Police Service (IPS) officer, was in the evening produced before a Hyderabad court, which sent him to 14-day judicial remand. Rao became the fifth police officer to be arrested in the case.
“As part of the investigation in the case, the said person (Radhakishan Rao) was called for questioning yesterday to Banjara Hills police station, and during his questioning he confessed about his involvement in the commission of the reported crimes of conspiracy to develop profiles of private persons, exploiting the official resources meant for lawful duties,” a police release said on Friday night.
On his confession, he was arrested around 8 am on Friday and was produced before the 14th chief additional metropolitan magistrate T Kanhyalal at his residence at Kompalli. The judge remanded him in judicial custody till April 12 and he was taken to Chanchalguda jail, the release said.
Rao had served as the DCP of Hyderabad task force police till 2019 and later continued in the same office as officer on special duty (OSD).
Besides Rao, the Punjagutta police also arrested inspector B Gattu Mallu for his suspected involvement in phone-tapping incident, in association with suspended deputy superintendent of police (DSP) Duggyala Praneeth Rao of the special intelligence bureau (SIB), people familiar with the matter said.
Praneeth Rao was arrested on March 13 for allegedly tapping phones of “unknown persons”, believed to be political leaders from opposition parties, and tampering with vital evidence and call data records. According to the police, Praneeth Rao has been charged with “developing profiles of unknown persons and monitoring the same clandestinely, un-authorisedly and illegally, causing disappearance of records, both physical and electronic, from the SIB office”.
On March 10, the Punjagutta police (in Hyderabad) registered a criminal case against Rao, six days after he was suspended as DSP over “gross misconduct” and “abuse of official position”. He has been charged under sections 409 (criminal breach of trust), 427 (intentionally causing damage to the property), 201 (tampering of evidence), 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) besides provisions of the Prevention of Damage to Public Property (PDPP) Act and the Information Technology (IT) Act.
Last week, two former policemen, N Bhujanga Rao and M Tirupatanna, were also arrested in connection with the case. On Thursday, both of them were sent to five-day police custody for questioning.
Meanwhile, the police are on the lookout for former Telangana Intelligence Bureau chief, T Prabhakhar Rao, the prime accused in the case, who is believed to have fled to the US soon after the arrest of Praneeth Rao. The Telangana police have issued a lookout circular to nab him at entry and exit points of the airports.
The police are also on the lookout for a media house owner Shravan Rao, who was also associated with the former SIB authorities in providing the server for tapping the phones.
