A case has been registered against senior BRS leader and Siddipet MLA T Harish Rao and others after a real estate businessman alleged that his phone was tapped by them, police said on Tuesday.

The complainant, G Chakradhar Goud, who contested the 2023 assembly elections on a BSP ticket from Siddipet and lost, accused Harish Rao, the nephew of former Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, of using state intelligence to monitor his movements and those of his associates and family members.

Reacting to the registration of the case against him, Rao hit out at Telangana Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy, accusing him of foisting many false cases against him as he is "exposing" him (Revanth Reddy).

In the complaint, Goud stated that during the election campaign, when he contacted his followers for meetings and rallies, many of them informed him that they had received threatening calls warning them not to attend his events.

"These individuals also reported that the caller knew about their conversations and contact details, which led me to suspect that my phone was being tapped," he said.

Based on the complaint, police said a case was registered at the Panjagutta police station on December 1, charging Harish Rao, former Deputy Commissioner of Police P Radha Kishan Rao, and others with criminal conspiracy, extortion, and criminal breach of trust by public servants under relevant sections of the IPC and IT Act. The investigation is underway.

The complainant further suspected that the former minister influenced police officials to monitor his activities.

He alleged that despite submitting petitions to the police department multiple times regarding the surveillance of him and his associates, no action had been taken earlier.

Reacting to the allegations, Rao in a post on 'X' said: "I have been questioning your (Revanth Reddy) unjust acts and exposing your real nature and standing by people. But you are unable to stand it and hence getting many illicit cases foisted against me. Since I exposed your double standards and questioned you in public, you foisted another false case against me in Panjagutta police station. Even if you file a lakh of false cases, I will not stop questioning on behalf of people." Radha Kishan Rao is one of the accused in another case of phone tapping that allegedly happened during the previous BRS regime and is currently in prison.

The Hyderabad police, investigating the case, have arrested four police officials (now suspended) since March 13 for allegedly erasing intelligence data from various electronic gadgets.

The former chief of the Special Intelligence Bureau (SIB) in Telangana and another accused are still absconding and are suspected to be in the US.

A suspended DSP and his team are accused of creating profiles of hundreds of people and intercepting phone calls, police said.

Two former BRS MLAs were questioned by police last month in connection with the phone-tapping case.

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