SIB officials installed device to hear Revanth Reddy’s conversations

Hyderabad: All India Congress Committee (AICC) member and senior vice president of Telangana Congress G Niranjan has appealed to director-general of police (DGP) Ravi Gupta to make sure that the administration is clean and to sternly warn all department officers to abstain from misconduct and corruption in the greater interest of the Telangana people.

In a letter to DGP Ravi Gupta, Niranjan said, “The illegal and unconstitutional role played by the top-level officers of the Special Intelligence Branch (SIB) is very unfortunate and shatters the confidence of the people in the system. Earlier, we used to praise the competence of Telangana police but the findings of phone tapping made the department bow their heads. The Telangana police expected to prevent cyber-crimes itself resorted to cyber-crimes.”

The SIB officials had allegedly installed a device to eavesdrop on Revanth Reddy’s conversations.

Allegations of destroying proof

The AICC member further said that the officials had damaged the hard discs and thrown them away, something that is done by criminals, he said. The SIB officials hired a house near the residence of A Revanth Reddy, present chief minister and president of Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) and had installed a device brought from Israel to record the conversations. Such types of Israel-made devices might be required by Israel as they are in battle with Palestine for a long period, he said.

“But what is the necessity of it for us? Moreover, it is known that it was brought without the permission of the Union Home Ministry concerned. If this device is required for surveillance of Naxalites, then why was it installed in Hyderabad near the residence of CM Revanth Reddy? It is also published in the newspapers that these SIB officers targeted the businessmen in real estate to extort the money. Are these people being policemen, thugs or pirates?” Niranjan said.

The TPCC senior vice president also said that they are not blaming the entire police department but there are officers in every district connected with such activities. A news item published in the vernacular media said that one of the officers utilised the Dharani App as he liked and indulged in land grabbing. Though the present government issued orders for changes to the Dharani Portal to mitigate the public grievances an officer is creating hurdles in it. He alleged that former chief secretary Somesh Kumar, senior IAS Arvind Kumar and SIB former chief T Prabhakar Rao are responsible for the misuse of power and tapping ears to Revanth’s residence.

‘BJP misusing agencies’

Niranjan also alleged that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is misusing the agencies at the Centre and trying to trouble the leaders of the opposition parties, in the same way the previous BRS government misused the Special Intelligence Branch illegally.