Hyderabad: The investigators, who grilled the suspended Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) G Praneeth Rao in connection with alleged phone tapping and erasing data, are likely to tighten the noose around former SIB chief and retired IPS officer T Prabhakar Rao. Prabhakar Rao is close to the former chief minister when the BRS was in power.It was reported that Praneeth Rao along with others allegedly used highly sophisticated tools, who generally utilise to track banned Maoists and terrorists, in tracking the regular telephonic conversation of opposition parties and others. The investigators allegedly obtained inputs that Praneeth Rao maintained data of phone tapping in lakhs and destroyed recorded data of at least 10 lakh individual numbers which contained the then opposition political party– Congress party leaders, TNGO association leaders, journalist associations including media WhatsApp groups, and other government officers held in key positions.Just hours before T Prabhakar Rao tendered his resignation to the post of SIB chief due to BRS party lost in recently held Assembly elections, Praneeth Rao was allegedly instructed to destroy data from hard disks and pen drives including soft copies of several reports which were made based on tapping tele-phonic conversation.It was reported that Praneeth Rao, who worked many years in SIB, had done a new tool in mapping required mobile numbers and high profiles in tapping their regular conversation and preserving the data. Based on the data, soft copies have been prepared by Praneeth Rao and others. These reports have been submitted to the then government for information. Thousands of soft copy reports have been erased from the hard disks days before the TPCC Chief A Revanth Reddy taking oath as Chief Minister.The sources also said that the investigators would also collect call data of accused police officer Praneeth Rao to analyse the data to know the key officer’s role in the phone tapping issue.December 4, 2023: T Prabhakar Rao resigned his post of SIB chief following the BRS party lost in elections.November 3, 2020: The then chief secretary Somesh Kumar issued an order appointing retired IPS officer Prabhakar Rao as chief of operations (Intelligence) (SIB), shall look after the work of IGP (Intelligence) until further orders following Naveen Chand retired.June 2020: Prabhakar Rao was retired from service after working at different places in the police department for 29 years.August 2021: the then government issued orders in continuing Prabhakar Rao as chief of SIB while promoting the IPS officer Anil Kumar as additional DG of intelligence.
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