Former chief of Telangana’s Special Intelligence Bureau (SIB) and the main accused in a phone tapping case, T Prabhakar Rao, returned to Hyderabad on Sunday evening after spending over 15 months in the United States. He is expected to appear before the Special Investigation Team (SIT) at Jubilee Hills police station on Monday for questioning.
Rao had been evading police questioning for over a year, ever since a case was registered at Panjagutta police station in March 2024.
His return comes just days after the Supreme Court granted him interim protection from arrest. The court also ordered the authorities on May 29 to return his passport, which had earlier been revoked by the Ministry of External Affairs at the request of Telangana police.
Since his passport was revoked, Rao had to approach the Indian Embassy in the US and was issued a one-time travel document. Before leaving the US, he submitted an undertaking to the Supreme Court stating he would return and fully cooperate with the investigation.
With Rao’s return, all six people accused in the case have now come back to India or have already been questioned. Out of them, four — M Thirupathanna, D Praneeth Rao, Radha Kishan Rao and Bhujanga Rao- were arrested earlier and later released on bail.
Another accused, Shravan Kumar Rao, also returned from abroad recently and is currently in Chanchalguda jail for a different case handled by the Hyderabad CCS police.
Investigators claim that during the previous Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) government, phones of several individuals, including a High Court judge, political leaders, journalists, and activists, were illegally tapped. One of the accused allegedly confessed to the surveillance. The SIT is expected to question Prabhakar Rao on his role in setting up and operating the network and how the state machinery allegedly was misused during his tenure as SIB chief.
Rao has denied all the charges and cited the case as “political vendetta”. While in the US, he even applied for asylum, claiming he was a victim of a political vendetta. However, his petition was rejected. Back in India, he filed for anticipatory bail, arguing that there was no direct evidence against him, and that he had a clean service record and was willing to assist the investigation.
