Top-secret letters by telecom providers blew lid off ‘illegal surveillance' during BRS regime

Indian Express

2 days ago

On December 6, 2023, a routine letter from a telecom service provider reached Telangana's Special Intelligence Branch (SIB) office in Hyderabad. Called a reconciliation letter in official parlance, it was marked 'top secret' and addressed to the then DIG of SIB.
Just three days earlier, a new government had stormed to power in the state, with the Congress led by Revanth Reddy ousting K Chandrashekar Rao's BRS.
The letter asked whether the service provider, Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited, should continue legal interception or surveillance of a set of phone numbers. According to the letter, the numbers, included as an attachment, were under legal interception from November 16 to November 30, 2023 — the fortnight leading up to Assembly elections.
Reconciliation letters are sent when the 15-day window of legal surveillance — or surveillance done in the interest of the state — expires and service providers need re-authorisation for another 15 days.
This letter, and similar reconciliation letters for the same number of days sent by well-known private and public service providers to the SIB office, form the foundation of Telangana's case against five top police and intelligence officers and a TV channel operator, who are accused of indulging in the illegal surveillance of 600 individuals — using the state's anti-Naxal surveillance mechanisms — to benefit the BRS, The Indian Express has learnt.
Those allegedly snooped on included politicians, party workers, bureaucrats, businessmen, a sitting High Court judge, as well as their spouses, drivers and even childhood friends, according to a perusal of official documents and detailed conversations with investigators. A chargesheet in the case was filed on June 8, 2024.
According to investigators familiar with the probe and the chargesheet, the surveillance was carried out 'to ensure BRS's victory in the (Assembly) elections by monitoring potential political leaders of opponent parties as well as rebels in the BRS'.
The reconciliation letter dated December 6, 2023, read, 'This is to inform you that during the above-mentioned period, we have received the request letters from legal interception of Mobile/IMEI/ILD numbers as per the attached details: Kindly confirm the authenticity of the said letters.'
The telecom provider, Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited, did not respond to queries from The Indian Express.
While the mandate of the SIB, which was set up in 1990, is to track and prevent the activities of the Communist Party of India (Maoist), 'at least 600 numbers were found to be unrelated to Left Wing Extremism or the CPI (Maoist)', highly placed sources said. 'When probe agencies investigated further, they were found to be the numbers of politicians, bureaucrats, political party workers, businessmen and others from different walks of life,' a highly placed source said.
The accused
The accused in the case are former SIB chief and IPS officer T Prabhakar Rao, Deputy Superintendent of Police D Praneeth Rao, Additional Superintendents of Police M Thirupathanna and N Bhujanga Rao, former Superintendent of Police P Radhakishan Rao, and a TV channel owner, A Shravan Kumar Rao.
While the Supreme Court had given Prabhakar Rao protection from arrest until August 5, Praneeth Rao, Thirupathanna, Bhujanga Rao and Radhakishan Rao were arrested and are out on bail. A Shravan Kumar Rao is lodged in a Central prison in Hyderabad in connection with a different case.
The BRS, which was earlier called Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS), was in power in the newly formed state of Telangana for 10 years starting 2014. BRS leader and two-time Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao also held the state intelligence portfolio. It was when the BRS lost elections to the Congress on December 3, 2023, that the case against the six blew open. On December 4, a day after the election results were announced, SIB chief Prabhakar Rao resigned from his official post.
The very same day, allegedly on his instructions, Praneeth Rao and others destroyed 62 hard disks from the SIB office in an attempt to destroy evidence, investigators said.
According to investigators, in the destroyed and formatted electronic devices, some of which were recovered from the Musi river in Hyderabad, were 'political profiles of BRS opponents generated through intelligence gathered illegally using SIB's resources or the state's resources'.
Under the Indian Telegraph Act, 1885, surveillance in the interest of public safety, in case of a public emergency or in cases of incitement against the state is allowed with due authorisation. According to investigators, in this case, the designated authority for authorisation was Prabhakar Rao, and the review committee comprising the Chief Secretary, Secretary of the General Administration Department and the Law Secretary followed his lead.
The allegations of illegal phone tapping first surfaced on March 10, 2024, when an Additional Superintendent of Police of the SIB lodged a complaint at Hyderabad's Punjagutta police station, accusing DSP Praneeth Rao of using illegal means to gather intelligence and then destroying the evidence.
It was this complaint that would eventually prompt investigators to revisit the letters sent by telecom service providers with the list of those who were allegedly surveilled.
According to officials, the charges against the accused include criminal conspiracy, public servants misusing their official position, causing disappearance of evidence, cyber terrorism, unauthorised and illegal surveillance and monitoring of phones, etc of targeted political leaders, their staff, family members, businessmen and their employees and bureaucrats.
The counter
The Indian Express reached out to all six accused in the case. Mohith Rao, advocate of M Thirupathanna, said, 'The Hyderabad police's contention that phones were intercepted and listened to is wrong. All that was obtained were legal CDRs of people linked to LWE. Also, A-1's (Prabhakar Rao's) subordinates were merely following legal orders passed to them by him.'
Aakriti Jain, advocate on record for Prabhakar Rao, said that her client 'stands by the arguments in the Special Leave Petition filed in the Supreme Court'. As per this petition, he is a decorated police officer who, as SIB chief, did not indulge in illegal surveillance. On the alleged destruction of evidence, the petition read, 'The incident cannot be attributed to the petitioner, who had already vacated office hours earlier.' According to the petition, Prabhakar Rao left the SIB office at 4 pm after tendering his resignation on December 4.
When contacted, Dasouju Sravan Kumar, a BRS MLC and spokesperson, said, 'Governments indulge in legal surveillance to check anti-social elements, including extremists, that too as per the law. The question of illegal surveillance or targeting of political leaders or others does not arise without the sanction of the apex committee comprising the Chief Secretary, the Home Secretary and the DGP. Unfortunately, the Hyderabad police, at the behest of the current Chief Minister, are on a futile fishing expedition which will not yield any results. They are trying to tarnish the image of the BRS leadership in the name of an investigation through an untenable and illegal SIT.'