Hyderabad: The Punjagutta police on Friday raided the residence of a iNews TV channel managing director Shravan Rao in connection with the D. Praneeth Rao phone tapping case, and alleged recovered some devices used in the operation.Sources said Shravan Rao fled abroad after the Punjagutta police registered cases against suspended DSP D. Praneeth Rao and others in the case.Police said that Praneeth Rao, who is in the police custody for questioning, had allegedly disclosed that he set up some servers and hard disks at iNews TV office located in Jubilee Hills and stored data in the devices. The data included phone records of businessmen, political leaders and mediapersons.Sources said that Praneeth Rao was influenced by Shravan Rao and they tapped the phones of budding Tollywood actors and later indulged in blackmailing them.Following the statement of Praneeth Rao, police initiated raids on the residence of Shravan Rao. The police were to raid the TV channel office to seize computers and servers which were set up separately.In his statement, Praneeth Rao allegedly revealed that he indulged in tapping phones of several VVIPs including celebrities following instructions of Shravan Rao and the data was allegedly retrieved from Praneeth Rao’s WhatsApp. It was also reported that Shravan Rao’s mobile phone was switched off for the past few days and he was in touch with his close associates by video calls and WhatsApp chat using International IP addresses.



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