Key Naxal operative arrested from Haryana: NIA
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Indian Express
13 hours ago
- Indian Express
Telangana snooping: Day after BRS lost power, ‘CCTVs switched off for 1 hour, snooping hard disks destroyed'
On the night of December 4, 2023, for the one hour between 8.34 pm and 9.34 pm, CCTV cameras at Telangana's premier intelligence organisation, the Special Intelligence Branch (SIB), were allegedly turned off, a probe by Hyderabad police has revealed. During this time, 62 hard disks were allegedly destroyed — cut, ground to bits and thrown into a river — in an anteroom at the Hyderabad office, investigators probing the Telangana illegal surveillance case have told The Indian Express. As reported by The Indian Express, the state police is currently probing allegations that five top police and intelligence officers and a TV channel operator indulged in illegal surveillance of 600 individuals — using the state's anti-Naxal surveillance mechanisms — to benefit the BRS. 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, it is learnt. On Friday, Union Minister of State for Home Affairs and BJP leader Bandi Sanjay Kumar, who is allegedly among those surveilled, deposed before Hyderabad police in connection with the case. After the deposition, he claimed that the phones of 6,500 people were tapped. 'Along with me, phones of Revanth Reddy and BRS MLAs were also tapped,' he said. The Indian Express had reported on Friday how an entire module was allegedly dedicated to surveil Revanth and his circle. According to investigators, the order to destroy the hard disks was allegedly given by the then SIB chief T Prabhakar Rao, who resigned from his post on December 4, 2023, a day after the Congress came to power in the state, replacing the BRS. His plea in the Supreme Court, however, states that the decision was ratified by a review committee of the state's Chief Secretary, the Secretary of the General Administration Department, and the Law Secretary on December 2, 2023. The then Chief Secretary and Home Secretary did not respond to queries about the case. While the majority of the disks that were destroyed allegedly contained 'political intelligence' or profiles, telephone conversations and online chats of several political leaders, some also contained legitimate surveillance data on the CPI (Maoist), which the SIB was supposed to collect, investigators said. They explained that the SIB, which was founded in 1990 to gather intelligence to thwart the Naxal menace, veered from its stated objective and allegedly started collecting intelligence to benefit the BRS. According to investigators, apart from the disks with the illegally collected data, the accused allegedly destroyed 'invaluable data built by SIB over decades', which 'put the internal security of the nation at risk'. Thirty-six of the disks were in the possession of a Special Operations Team (SOT), which operated under the SIB, investigators said. Constituted in 2020, it was this team that allegedly gathered political intelligence, investigators say. According to investigators, the SOT's lead officer was D Praneeth Kumar alias Praneeth Rao, a DSP of SIB, who was arrested in connection with the case and is now out on bail. Kumar allegedly had three rooms in the SIB office to himself and 11 personnel under him. They had access to 17 desktop computers, two laptops, two phone numbers and a dedicated leased line with internet connection. According to investigators, the SOT would allegedly write to various telecom service providers to allow them to intercept calls. This activity, called legal interception, was allegedly signed off by Prabhakar Rao, investigators familiar with the chargesheet said. A policeman formerly posted with the SIB, who is now a witness in the case, is learnt to have told the police that he was 'forced to add phone numbers unrelated to Left Wing Extremism to the list of those being intercepted'. As per the provisions of the Indian Telegraph Rules and standard operating procedures, every six months, legal interception data has to be destroyed. However, the witness is learnt to have told the Hyderabad police that the destruction was ordered hurriedly in December, one month before it was scheduled to be destroyed. Besides, there was no need to turn off the CCTV cameras at the time of destruction of legal intelligence, he is learnt to have told the police. The witness is learnt to have told the police that 'no other person was allowed into the SOT rooms even when technical repairs were required for the systems'. The technicians, he told police, had to collect the systems from the doorstep of the SOT rooms. Further, the SOT allegedly took the support of a private surveillance operator based in Hyderabad to track the internet activities of targets, investigators said. The police case relies on four witnesses from this private lab, which provides technical assistance for intercepting online conversations, including on WhatsApp. 'They are consultants for various law enforcement and defence agencies in India providing services of software developments, telecommunication services and cyber security services,' said an investigator familiar with the chargesheet. This company, according to investigators, provided three software tools which could 'gather data from various social media platforms like X, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Snapchat, etc.' The tools also helped in 'decrypting PCAP data and reading messages sent through applications like WhatsApp in targeted cellphones'.
News18
a day ago
- News18
2 CRPF CoBRA personnel injured in IED blast in Jharkhands Saranda forest
West Singhbhum (Jharkhand) [India] August 8 (ANI): Two Central Reserve Police Force's CoBRA troops sustained splinter injuries on Friday morning following an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) blast during an anti-Maoist operation in the Saranda forest area near Jaraikela in the West Singhbhum district of injured personnel are attached to the 209 CoBRA (Commando Battalion for Resolute Action) unit– a specialised elite force of the CRPF trained to tackle guerrilla warfare, jungle warfare, and insurgency operations, particularly in Left Wing Extremism (LWE) or Naxal-affected areas like Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Bihar, and to officials, the CRPF personnel sustained injuries around 11 am during a joint operation being conducted by troops of the 209 CoBRA unit and state police when the blast occurred. 'Immediate evacuation efforts were initiated, with both injured personnel being moved on foot to the Digha camp. From there, they are scheduled to be airlifted by helicopter for further medical treatment," the officials confirmed that both injured personnel are currently in stable condition. (ANI)
Indian Express
2 days ago
- Indian Express
‘RR Module': Revanth, his circle were ‘put under surveillance' during BRS rule
Telangana's current Chief Minister, A Revanth Reddy, his family members and associates were allegedly under constant surveillance when he was in the Opposition as the Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee president, a post he held between July 2021 and December 2023, The Indian Express has learnt, based on official documents and detailed conversations with investigators probing the snooping allegations when the Bharat Rashtra Samithi was in power. The BRS ruled the state from the time Telangana was formed in 2014 to December 3, 2023, when the Congress stormed to power. As reported by The Indian Express, the state police is currently probing allegations that five top police and intelligence officers and a TV channel operator indulged in illegal surveillance of 600 individuals — using the state's anti-Naxal surveillance mechanisms — to benefit the BRS. 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, it is learnt. In Revanth's case, however, investigators familiar with the chargesheet say an entire module was allegedly dedicated to the illegal surveillance. According to investigators, Praneeth Rao, the then DSP in the Special Intelligence Branch (SIB) office, and his team allegedly 'prepared profiles of family members, relatives and close personnel and party associates of A Revanth Reddy, and they used to call it RR (Revanth Reddy) Module'. Praneeth Rao is one of the five accused in the case and is currently out on bail. He allegedly acted on the instructions of former SIB chief Prabhakar Rao. When contacted, Aakriti Jain, advocate on record for Prabhakar Rao, said he '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 did not indulge in illegal surveillance. The alleged snooping on Revanth and other political players — from the BJP, Congress and even the BRS — was done 'to ensure BRS's victory in the (Assembly) elections by monitoring potential political leaders of opponent parties as well as rebels in the BRS', investigators said. According to the investigators, 'profiles' of those in Revanth's circle were allegedly put together — names, addresses, vehicle details and travel logs. As Opposition leader, Revanth was among the fiercest critics of former CM and BRS chief K Chandrashekar Rao and his family. KCR, as Chief Minister, also held the intelligence portfolio. Revanth has, in several speeches, said he believes he was being surveilled. According to investigators, it is also alleged that one of the key reasons to snoop on political opponents was to starve them and their parties of funding, particularly during poll season. It is alleged that the accused 'passed on actionable information to political leaders and the district police for field actions, including targeted seizure of money of supporters of the opposition political party and leaders', investigators said. For instance, during the Munugode bypolls in 2022, Rs 1 crore in cash 'belonging to certain leaders of the BJP from Karimnagar was seized', investigators said. According to investigators, Hyderabad police claim to have at least 11 witnesses who listened to conversations of political leaders as part of the illegal surveillance. These witnesses worked as 'loggers in the interception of telephones' and were supposed to surveil those linked to the CPI (Maoist) or Left Wing Extremists – the stated aim of the SIB – but were instead 'assigned telephone numbers of persons unrelated to LWE, mostly belonging to political parties,' investigators said. The BRS maintains that no illegal surveillance was carried out, with Dasoju Sravan Kumar, its MLC and spokesperson, telling The Indian Express that the Hyderabad police, 'at the behest of the current Chief Minister, are on a futile fishing expedition which will not yield any results'.
