Hyderabad: Designated as ‘Maoist sympathisers’, the phones of Congress leaders, including that of PCC president B Mahesh Kumar Goud, were allegedly tapped during BRS regime. The State Congress party chief and other leaders recorded their statements as witnesses before the SIT (Special Investigation Team) of state police investigating the ‘illegal phone tapping’ on Tuesday.

Speaking to reporters after his deposition, Mahesh Kumar Goud demanded that those involved in the phone tapping under the previous government be punished. He said the then ruling party leaders who ordered tapping of phones of their political rivals and the IAS and IPS officers who obeyed the orders should be punished.

Mahesh Goud said the guilty should be punished strictly so that no government in the future would dare to indulge in such illegal and unethical activity. He claimed that the Congress party suffered defeats in Telangana due to illegal phone tapping of its leaders by the BRS government.

He alleged that the BRS government tapped the phones of several Congress leaders. He said his and the Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy’s phones were also tapped.

The PCC president said that on suspicion that his phone was being tapped, he had lodged a complaint with the police. “Today, the facts have come out. Phones of senior Congress leaders have been tapped since 2022. We learnt that there are names of 650 Congress leaders in the SIT’s list whose phones were illegally tapped,” he said.

Mahesh Goud also alleged that the previous government threw the Telegraph Act to the wind to indulge in illegal activity. Goud remarked that BRS leaders KCR and KTR should hang their heads in shame for indulging in this act.

The state Congress chief said the SIT investigations are revealing how the BRS misused power to resort to phone tapping. He said the previous government appointed T Prabhakar Rao as intelligence chief after his retirement. He claimed that such a thing did not happen anywhere in the country. The Congress leader, who served as the working president of the TPCC in November 2023, was allegedly a victim of illegal phone tapping.