SIT grills Harish Rao for 7 hrs in phone-tapping case
He was asked why he conversed with ex-SIB chief Prabhakar Rao on WhatsApp
Hyderabad: The Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the phone-tapping case on Tuesday questioned senior BRS leader and former minister T Harish Rao for more than seven hours on Tuesday on his alleged role in tapping of phones.
Hundreds of followers of Harish Rao and the BRS party gathered near the Jubilee Hills police station and raised slogans against the government after the BRS leader was kept in the police station premises for more than seven hours for questioning. The questioning was based on an FIR on a complaint filed on March 10, 2024 as regards to the allegations of widespread phone-tapping during the previous BRS regime.
Three officials questioned Harish Rao during the seven hours questioning. According to reports, the SIT had identified that in one single day, phones of 600 leaders of Congress and BJP were tapped during the 2023 elections.
Sources said that the officials questioned why he talked to former Special Intelligence Bureau chief Prabhakar Rao and another accused Shravan Rao through WhatsApp call, why did he talk to Shravan Rao and another accused police official Radhakishan Rao on the same day during the 2023 election. It is said that a war room was set up in the private office of Shravan Rao for this purpose.
The sources said that officials further asked whether Harish Rao had introduced Prabhakar Rao and Pranith Rao to Shravan Rao, whether he had got doubts that phone tapping was going on in the BRS government, did he suggest Shravan Rao to work with the SIB officials, what is the reason for having conversation with Shravan Rao on WhatsApp several times.
The officials pointed out that one of the victims produced evidence that Harish Rao conspired and tapped the phone of Chakradhar Goud, who contested against him, and asked whether this was correct or not. They also asked whether the BRS leader had threatened businesspersons along with Radhakrishna Rao by tapping their phones.
After the inquiry ended after the seven-hour questioning, the BRS leader went to the party office, Telangana Bhavan, where he alleged that the police had repeatedly asked the same questions. “After every hour, the officials went out and were seen talking to someone, maybe they were getting instructions from Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy,” said Harish Rao.
Earlier in the day, when Harish Rao came to the Jubilee Hills police station, a large number of supporters of the BRS leader came to the Jubilee Hills police station. The police personnel did not allow the advocate of Harish Rao to accompany him in the questioning. Later in the evening, the police arrested the followers of Harish Rao and shifted them to various police station limits.
