SIT Questions Harish Rao for Seven Hours on Phone Tapping
After Harish Rao entered the SIT office his followers including BRS MLAs tried to accompany him but they were not allowed inside.
Hyderabad: The Special Investigation Team (SIT) on Tuesday questioned BRS leader T. Harish Rao for seven hours, focusing on his alleged role in the illegal phone tapping conducted during the tenure of the BRS government. The former minister reached the SIT office in Jubilee Hills by 11.25 am amid tight security arrangements and left at 6.20 pm.
After Harish Rao entered the SIT office his followers including BRS MLAs tried to accompany him but they were not allowed inside. However, the BRS workers raised slogans and tried to enter the premises, but the police took 25 of them into preventive arrest and released them later.
Over 250 police personnel, drawing from Quick Reaction Teams, law and order and armed reserve force, were deployed across the SIT offices. Personnel from the special branch and task force were deployed as a standby.
According to police sources, the SIT led by Hyderabad City commissioner V.C. Sajjanar, and nine other senior police officials reportedly questioned Harish Rao on his connection with former Special Intelligence Branch (SIB) chief T. Prabhakar and i-News managing director N. Shravan Kumar.
The SIT began recording Harish Rao’s statement around 11.25 am in connection with alleged phone tapping during the 2023 Assembly elections.
According to the sources, the investigators asked Harish Rao about a complaint lodged by a businessman stating that his phone was tapped at the behest of Harish Rao during the BRS tenure.
The investigators also asked Harish Rao about his sharing of certain phone numbers via WhatsApp with Sharavan Kumar for sending them to Prabhakar Rao. The SIT’s technical and cyber team retrieved call records indicating frequent communication between Harish Rao and Radhakishan Rao, Praneet Rao, and Prabhakar Rao and others.
The officials reportedly asked him about the illegal interception of over 600 phone numbers belonging to top Congress and BJP leaders in a single day during the elections.
They asked him about the secret meeting on ground-level operations conducted at i-News managing director Shravan Rao in the presence of Prabhakar Rao. “Did you introduce Prabhakar Rao with Shravan as the former SIB chief revealed in his statements,” the officials asked Harish Rao.
In a statement issued later in the day, the city police commissioner Sajjanar clarified that Harish Rao was questioned solely in connection with phone tapping and said that the former minister was allowed to leave early due to his son’s scheduled flight later in the evening.
“Harish Rao has been clearly instructed not to contact, influence, or interfere with any witnesses connected with the investigation and was informed that he may be summoned again for further examination, if required,” Sajjanar said.
He requested the public not to believe, propagate or circulate any false information about Harish Rao being examined despite the Supreme Court order.
