Cash taken in SUV for 7 days in midnight Munugode ops

Hyderabad: In a midnight operation over seven days, cash was allegedly transported in a private SUV under the supervision of top brass of the Nalgonda police during Munugode by-election. This was done to favour the BRS, said Hyderabad police, who are probing the phone tapping case. Police said the midnight operation witnessed police escort provided to the private vehicle when the cash was being transported from Oct 26 and Nov 2 (days on which the model code of conduct was in force). The cash was transported on all days except on Nov 1.

“As per the instructions of Nalgonda superintendent of police, DSP Mogulaiah took two constables along with him daily to escort the car for transportation of money to BRS contesting candidate,” police said as per their investigation. On October 31, a public meeting was conducted in which then chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao was in attendance. The DSP allegedly showed a person to one of the two constables stating he was an additional superintendent of police and close to KCR. “It was on his instructions, that escort was provided to the private vehicle. Later, the person was identified as Tirupathanna (an accused in the phone tapping case),” police said. Moinabad farmhouse MLA poaching case The investigators also found that in the Moinabad farmhouse MLA poaching case, the then deputy superintendent of police, intelligence, D Praneeth Rao allegedly tapped the phones of accused Nanda Kumar, Simhayaji Swamy and Ramachandra Bharati. Praneeth Rao heard the conversations which took place between them. He copied the conversation in his pen drive from the only access port exclusively provided to his system. Later, he allegedly handed over to this to then Special Intelligence Bureau (SIB) chief Prabhakar Rao, who is now the prime accused in the phone tapping case. This video was allegedly shared with the media, cops said.Officials said that after BRS lost the 2023 assembly election, Praneeth Rao on the instructions of Prabhakar Rao, erased data and damaged hard disks. Subsequently, these were thrown into Musi and Begumpet nala. “Material evidence seized was forwarded to Forensic Science Laboratory. So far, experts feel that from the pieces of hard disks recovered from the River Musi, data cannot be extracted. However, they have opined that the material evidence collected from Musi bed tallied with evidence collected from SIB,” an official said. One recovered hard disk piece tallied with serial number in the records of SIB. Opinion from forensic experts is pending in various seized material.