Hyderabad, Feb. 15: A local court granted bail to a former Deputy Superintendent of Police, an accused in a phone tapping case. First Additional Sessions Court here allowed the bail petition of D Praneeth Rao on Friday after he executed a personal bond for Rs One lakh with two sureties each for the like sum.
The court further directed Praneeth to appear before the SHO of Panjagutta police station on every Monday for a period of eight weeks, surrender his passport before the court, and cooperate with the investigation agency. Praneeth who earlier worked as a DSP in Special Intelligence Bureau (SIB) in Telangana was among the four police officials, who were arrested by Hyderabad Police since March 2024, for allegedly erasing the intelligence information from various electronic gadgets as well as for alleged phone tapping during the previous BRS regime.
Praneeth was named as accused number 2 in the case. Seeking bail the petitioner had contended that he was falsely implicated in the case due to political reasons and he cannot be targeted and victimised for performing official duties. All other persons arrested in the case have already been granted bail.
The former chief of SIB T Prabhakar Rao, and another accused in the case are absconding and are suspected to be in the US. The suspended DSP and other persons accused in the case have allegedly indulged in tapping the phones and recording the phone conversations of several private persons and conspired together by using technology unauthorizedly and thus, created profiles of targeted leaders of various political parties and their supporters, police had earlier said.
It was alleged that after the then ruling party BRS lost in Assembly elections held in December 2023, the accused persons damaged the hard disks of computer systems of SIB
