Phone tapping case Union Minister Bandi Sanjay Kumar to depose as witness on July 24

    Hyderabad, Jul 17 (PTI) Union Minister of State for Home, Bandi Sanjay Kumar, has been served notice by the SIT to record his statement as a witness in a case related to alleged illegal phone tapping during the previous BRS regime, police said on Thursday.
    In the notice, the Special Investigation Team probing the case sought Kumar's time for recording his statement and he agreed to appear before the police on July 24, they said.
    The union minister suggested to the investigators meet him at the Dilkusha Government Guest House in the city.
    Accusing former Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao of being behind phone-tapping, Kumar said he would cooperate with the investigators.
    "KCR did the crime of Phone tapping & now I got the invitation as witness. My phone, my family’s, my staff’s - no one was spared. That’s how low they stooped. I’ll will fully cooperate with SIT. The truth will come out. Satyameva Jayate !!," he said in a post on 'X'.
    BRS earlier denied allegations of phone-tapping.
    Authorities are currently questioning former Special Intelligence Bureau (SIB) chief of Telangana, T Prabhakar Rao, the prime accused, in the case.
    Rao has been accused of forming a "Special Operations Team" under a suspended DSP within the SIB for carrying out certain specific tasks related to political surveillance to benefit the then ruling political party and its leaders.
    The suspended DSP of the SIB was among the four police officials arrested by the Hyderabad police in March 2024 for allegedly erasing intelligence information from various electronic gadgets, as well as for phone-tapping during the BRS regime. They were subsequently granted bail.
    Those named as accused in the case, along with others, had allegedly developed profiles of several people in an unauthorised manner and were accused of monitoring them clandestinely and illegally in the SIB and using them in a partisan manner to favour a political party at the behest of some people.

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)