Suspended Hyderabad DSP held in phone-tapping case

Hyderabad: The Hyderabad police on Wednesday arrested suspended deputy superintendent of police (DSP) Duggyala Praneeth Rao for allegedly tapping phones of “unknown persons”, believed to be political leaders from opposition parties, and tampering with vital evidence and call data records during his stint in the crime records bureau of the Telangana special intelligence branch (SIB), a senior officer said on Wednesday.

Rao was apprehended from his residence in Siricilla on Tuesday night and brought to Hyderabad. After his questioning, Rao was arrested on Wednesday afternoon, deputy commissioner of police (DCP), West Zone, SM Vijay Kumar said.

“There is prima facie evidence against Rao and during the investigation, he confessed to having committed the offences,” Kumar said, adding that Rao was produced before the Nampally criminal court, which remanded him to 14-day judicial custody.

He is lodged at the Chanchalguda prison in Hyderabad.

On March 10, the Punjagutta police (in Hyderabad) registered a criminal case against Rao, six days after he was suspended as DSP over “gross misconduct” and “abuse of official position”.

Rao has been charged with “developing profiles of unknown persons and monitoring the same clandestinely, un-authorisedly and illegally, causing disappearance of records, both physical and electronic, from the SIB office,” DCP Kumar said.

He is also accused of copying intelligence information into his personal drives illegally, causing destruction of certain computer systems and other official data of the SIB, the officer added.

Based on a complaint lodged by the additional superintendent of police, SIB, D Ramesh, a first information report (FIR) has been registered against Rao under sections 409 (criminal breach of trust), 427 (intentionally causing damage to the property), 201 (tampering of evidence), 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) besides provisions of the Prevention of Damage to Public Property (PDPP) Act and the Information Technology (IT) Act.

Rao, who had been working as an inspector in the SIB since 2018, was promoted as DSP in 2023, the FIR stated. “While working in the SIB, Rao, unlike other teams, occupied two rooms exclusively for himself and operated with 17 systems provided to him with an exclusive and dedicated leased line with internet connection, through which he developed profiles of unknown persons and monitored the same clandestinely, unauthorisedly and illegally,” it added.

In his complaint, ASP Ramesh said that a few days ago, he came to know about the disappearance of records, both physical and electronic from the SIB office. “On inquiry, it came to light that Rao, by misusing and abusing his official position, used to copy intelligence information into his personal drives such as pen drive, external disks etc., which were in his custody,” the FIR stated, quoting the complainant.

The ASP suspected that Rao had done this with the collusion of unknown persons and in order to shield his criminal acts. “The DSP resorted to erasing of entire information by way of dismantling the systems including external hard discs, by personally supervising the process of destruction unauthorisedly and illegally,” the ASP said in his complaint.

The SIB authorities came to know that on December 4 last year, a day after the Telangana assembly election results were declared, the DSP entered the SIB office, dismantled and destroyed equipment containing data/information. “While doing so, he turned off the cameras [CCTVs] and destroyed old hard drives which contained data, which was gathered over decades along with the data clandestinely obtained by him and to avoid any suspicion against him, he replaced the old hard drives with new ones unauthorisedly and illegally,” the complainant said.

Rao’s mobile phone has been confiscated and handed over to the forensic science laboratory to retrieve the data, a senior police officer said, requesting anonymity. “Police have also seized the SIM cards used by him in the past. A thorough investigation is needed to find out what he had recorded in his personal systems and what he had destroyed,” the officer added.