The seizure of cash by Hyderabad Police Commissioner’s Task Force during different elections between 2018 and 2023 were made with ‘actionable intelligence inputs’ provided by the team of Dugyala Praneeth Kumar from the Special Intelligence Branch (SIB) office in Begumpet.
This revelation was made in the confessional statement of P. Radhakishan Rao, who headed the Task Force (TF) then and was arrested recently in the sensational case of ‘developing profiles of unknown persons and monitoring them’. According to the confessional statement, he was posted as TF Deputy Commissioner of Police by the TRS supremo (now BRS chief K.Chandrasekhar Rao) in 2017 on the recommendation of the then SIB chief T. Prabhakar Rao. This was done to “maintain a hold on Hyderabad city for political and other reasons”, the statement said.
He would meet with Prabhakar Rao, Bhujanga Rao, Venugopal Rao (retired ASP) and Praneeth Kumar “regularly to see that the BRS regime continue to rule the State”. While Prabhakar Rao left the country after a case was registered against Praneeth Kumar, the latter and Bhujanga Rao and Thirupathanna (both of Additional Superintendent of Police rank) were arrested in the case.
According to the confessional statement, at the behest of Radhakishan Rao, an inspector named Gattu Mallu was inducted into TF. After working for two years with TF, Gattu Mallu joined SIB after working as Naryanaguda inspector for some time. They decided to communicate through encrypted apps and tools like WhatsApp, Signal and Snapchat to ensure their “clandestine and unauthorised activities using technology, tools and manpower” were not detected. This group of police officers conspired to ensure a consecutive third victory for BRS in Assembly polls in 2023.
According to the confessional statement, Radhakishan Rao said that he knew that Praneeth Kumar was specially chosen by Prabhakar Rao to head the newly-created ‘Special Operations Team’ at SIB. This team was constituted to exclusively keep tabs on select political leaders and their associates of other political parties. The wing used to keep surveillance on rebel candidates and dissidents within BRS while attempting to rope in potential leaders of other political parties to join BRS which was earlier known as TRS. This “was clearly against the mandate of SIB”, the statement said.
