Hyderabad: Two days after former minister Harish Rao appeared before the Telangana Police Special Investigation Team (SIT) in the phone-tapping case, Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) working president KT Rama Rao (KTR) will appear for questioning on Friday, January 23.
KTR was served a notice on Thursday, January 22, by the investigation team asking him to appear at the Jubilee Hills Assistant Commissioner of Police’s office at 11 am.
On January 20, former irrigation minister and Siddipet MLA Harish Rao underwent a seven-hour interrogation by the nine-member SIT headed by Hyderabad Police Commissioner VC Sajjanar. Later, he slammed Chief Minister Revanth Reddy over his “diversionary politics.”
Details of the phone-tapping case
The phone-tapping case, in which the then K Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR)-led BRS government has been accused of using police machinery to monitor the phone conversations of Opposition leaders during the 2023 Telangana Assembly elections, has become a talking point for the ruling Congress.
The summons came after the Supreme Court on January 5 dismissed a petition filed by the Telangana government against Harish Rao, challenging the first information report (FIR) filed against him in the case. The top court declined to intervene in the orders given by the Telangana High Court, which ruled in his favour, even as it declined to overturn the high court’s decisions.
The BRS government has been accused of running a secret intelligence unit to profile over 600 people, including politicians, judges, actors, and other rivals. Over 1 lakh phone calls were allegedly e-tapped. Those who were reportedly monitored included Chief Minister Revanth Reddy, members of the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP), the Congress, and even some BRS leaders.
The unit also allegedly used this data to extort crores of rupees from local businessmen. When the government changed, a criminal case was registered, and the officers panicked, destroying 17 hard drives and dumping them into the Musi river to bury the evidence.
Former Telangana intelligence chief T Prabhakar Rao, the prime accused in the case, was earlier questioned by the SIT.
