Right before the 2023 Assembly elections, a Special Operations Team (SOT) of Telangana’s Special Intelligence Bureau (SIB) allegedly tapped the phones of at least 600 individuals, an investigation spanning one year by Hyderabad police is learnt to have revealed. While the Bharat Rashtra Samithi government, led by K Chandrashekar Rao, was in power at the time, the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party were in the Opposition.
The alleged tapping took place between November 16 and November 30, 2023, the day the Assembly elections were held in the state, a top-ranking police officer told The Indian Express. “While the tapping, according to confessions and investigation into the case, allegedly started in 2018-19, we have evidence that proves that for 15 days before the state assembly elections, at least 600 individuals were placed under surveillance without cause,” the officer said.
Individuals whose phones were allegedly put under surveillance included political leaders, public representatives, psephologists, journalists, party workers and businessmen, the officer said. The extent of the surveillance was such that the phones of relatives, including spouses, and employees, including drivers, of the 600 persons of interest were allegedly tapped by the SIB, the officer said.
According to sources, most of those who were allegedly surveilled were from the opposition.
Among those summoned by the Hyderabad police to depose so far are Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee president Mahesh Kumar Goud and BJP leader and Union Minister for State Bandi Sanjay Kumar, indicating that their phones may have been under surveillance.
The allegations of phone tapping first surfaced in March 2024, when an Additional Superintendent of Police of the SIB lodged a complaint at Hyderabad’s Punjagutta police station, accusing DSP Praneeth Rao of using illegal means to gather intelligence.
The Punjagutta police have named six accused in the case, including former SIB chief T Prabhakar Rao, Praneeth Rao, additional superintendents of police M Thirupathanna and N Bhujanga Rao, former deputy commissioner of police T Radha Kishan Rao, and television channel owner N Shravan Kumar.
While the Supreme Court has given reprieve to Prabhakar Rao from being arrested until August, D Praneeth Rao, Bhujanga Rao, M Thirupathanna and T Radha Kishan Rao were arrested and later released on bail. N Shravan Kumar is currently lodged in Chanchalguda prison in connection with a separate case. He, too, has been granted a reprieve from arrest in the phone tapping case by the Supreme Court. The ex-SIB chief has been questioned several times, including most recently on July 16.
When contacted for a comment, Sravan Kumar Dasoju, BRS MLC and spokesperson, said, “The Congress government under Revanth Reddy is using the so-called phone tapping case as a political weapon to tarnish the image of the BRS leadership.”
“The interception of phones, if at all it was done, would have been sanctioned by the police and intelligence departments with the permission of the Apex Committee consisting of the Chief Secretary, the DGP and the Home Secretary, as per law. The BRS party had nothing to do with it,” he said. “Besides, there is no legitimacy of the SIT and no transparency in the investigation being done by it. It is playing out like a Netflix saga, to mudsling on the BRS and deflect the people’s attention from the failures of the government.”
A key challenge for investigators, sources said, is the fact that every six months, the SIB’s Special Operations Team allegedly destroyed surveillance records. “The SIB’s mandate is to look into Left Wing Extremism. They place only those connected with Maoists under surveillance. In this case, the SIB is alleged to have placed unconnected individuals under surveillance for political reasons,” the officer said.
The alleged surveillance was done by misusing Section 419(a) of the Indian Telegraph Rules. The rules state: “Directions for interception of any message or class of messages under sub-section (2) of Section 5 of the Indian Telegraph Act, 1885 (hereinafter referred to as the said (Act) shall not be issued except by an order made by the Secretary to the Government of India in the Ministry of Home Affairs in the case of Government of India and by the Secretary to the State Government in-charge of the Home Department in the case of a State Government.”
A legal expert of the Hyderabad police explained, “The rules, however, give a relaxation that in the case of emergency or unavoidable circumstances, such order may be made by an officer, not below the rank of a Joint Secretary to the Government of India, who has been duly authorised by the Union Home Secretary or the State Home Secretary.”
