Telangana phone-tapping case: Accused appears before police for questioning

One of the accused in the phone-tapping case appeared before the police here on Saturday after being issued a notice by them. Shravan Kumar, who was found absconding and suspected to be in the US, landed in Hyderabad and appeared before the Special Investigation Team (SIT) after a notice was earlier issued directing him to appear for questioning, police said.

A suspended DSP of the Special Intelligence Bureau (SIB) in Telangana was among four police officials, who were arrested by Hyderabad Police since March 2024, for allegedly erasing the intelligence information from various electronic gadgets as well as for alleged phone tapping during the previous BRS regime. They were subsequently granted bail.

A Red Corner Notice was also issued against Shravan Kumar (A-6) and against former chief of SIB T Prabhakar Rao, the key accused in the case, who is absconding and is suspected to be in the US.

Once a Red Corner notice is issued by Interpol, the details of the criminals at large are shared with the immigration officers in airports across the world, making it impossible for one to travel from one country to the other.

Kumar had recently approached the Supreme Court which directed the police not to take coercive steps against him. The Apex Court had also directed him to cooperate with the investigators, a senior police official told PTI.

Kumar was named as one of the accused in the phone-tapping case and is part of the alleged conspiracy in which the accused "misused" the resources of SIB for political purposes by putting citizens from different walks of life under surveillance, the official said.

Those named as accused in the case along with others had allegedly developed profiles of several persons unauthorisedly and were accused of monitoring them clandestinely and illegally in SIB and using them in a partisan manner to favour a political party at the behest of some persons, police earlier said.