"Diversion Game": KTR Jabs Revanth Reddy Before SIT Questioning In Phone-Tapping Case

Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) Working President KT Rama Rao on Friday slammed Telangana Chief Minister Revanth Reddy ahead of his questioning by the police's special investigation team (SIT) in connection with a phone-tapping case.

Speaking to NDTV, Rao, commonly known as KTR, said his summons by a nine-member SIT, which is headed by Hyderabad Police Commissioner VC Sajjanar, is the Telangana government's "diversion game" to cover up their "failures".

"This is a time-pass program. We are also impressed... It is press publicity for us," he said.

"We have not done anything wrong, so we are not scared. We will come whenever you call us," KTR said, adding that it is his "character assassination".

He also charged that the Congress government is tapping his phone.

"The ministers of this government themselves are saying their phones are getting tapped, and they are scared to speak on phones," the BRS leader said.

He also called Revanth Reddy a "thief" for trying to "buy" his leader.

"In 2015, one chor (thief) was caught who was trying to buy our leader for Rs 50 lakh. Today that chor has become the chief minister," he said.

The SIT is probing the alleged phone tapping during the previous BRS government. BRS leader Naveen Rao on January 4 had appeared before the SIT in connection with the case. 

Former Telangana intelligence chief T. Prabhakar Rao, the prime accused in the case, was earlier questioned by the SIT.

A suspended DSP of the Telangana Special Intelligence Bureau (SIB) was among four police officials who have been 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 regime. They were subsequently granted bail.

The accused are part of the alleged conspiracy in which they "misused" the resources of SIB for political purposes by putting citizens from different walks of life under surveillance, police had said.

Those named as accused in the case, along with others, had allegedly developed profiles of several persons unauthorisedly and were accused of monitoring them clandestinely and illegally in SIB and using them in a partisan manner to favour a political party at the behest of some persons, the police said.