Arrested Telangana cop recorded 10 lakh conversations, operated war rooms with private servers: Probe

Hyderabad: The ongoing investigation into the alleged phone-tapping case during the previous BRS regime by a DSP in Special Intelligence Branch (SIB) of Telangana police, Dugyala Praneeth Rao, has revealed that he had a huge cache of data and recorded at least 10 lakh two-way conversations over a period of time.

According to sources in Hyderabad police, he had operated three private war rooms with exclusive private servers to carry out the phone tapping.

These conversations include the then opposition leader and the present chief minister, A Revanth Reddy, realtors, bureaucrats, and some media personalities.

Rao has been accused of destroying the data by burning the hard drives immediately after the results of Assembly polls were out on December 3 last year.

He had committed the alleged crime by switching off the CCTV cameras, and later to cover up his act, he replaced the hard disks with new ones.

Following a complaint by SIB's additional SP D Ramesh, Rao was arrested and produced before a magistrate. He was also immediately suspended. The court remanded him to seven-day police custody. He is now being questioned.

Praneeth Rao was charged for alleged clandestine monitoring of individuals, unauthorised access to official records, and misuse of intelligence information in the name of SIB operations.

It is understood that Praneeth operated three war rooms -- one in Hyderabad city, two in Siricilla and Warangal to tap phones of targeted individuals. He also had two private servers setup to undertake this activity.

Praneeth Rao who worked as inspector in SIB's anti-naxalite unit was promoted as DSP during the previous regime and was given many powers by senior cops who were calling the shots then. It is alleged that he had also copied those conversations into his pen drives from the government devices.

He was charged under Indian Penal Code (IPC) section 409 (criminal breach of trust by a public servant), 427 (mischief), 201 (causing disappearance of evidence ), 120 b, r/w 34 (criminal conspiracy), and Prevention Of Damage To Public Property (PDPP) Act was invoked.

Notably in 2021, Revanth Reddy -- when he was in the opposition -- had alleged that Rao was tapping several phones including the then DGP.