HYDERABAD: Nearly eight months after the case was registered, the police have reportedly summoned four more former MLAs from the BRS for examination in the alleged phone-tapping case.
On Monday, the police had summoned Nakrekal former MLA Chirumarthi Lingaiah for examination in the case. However, Lingaiah sought more time to appear citing health reasons.
Sources said that the summons stemmed from some crucial information that has surfaced in the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) reports. It may be mentioned here that at the time of filing the chargesheet, the police had not received the FSL reports.
Recently, during the hearing of a bail petition filed by former ASP M Thirupathanna in the Telangana High Court, the Public Prosecutor told the court that Lingaiah had been in contact with the accused, adding that they got to know about this only after police received FSL reports.
Lingaiah allegedly asked Thirupathanna to tap the phones of certain people at the time of elections, the PP said. The FSL reports also threw up some other names along with Lingaiah. Based on the FSL reports, police are summoning more people for examination.
The FSL reports revealed that some politicians, reportedly connected to the BRS, sent the phone numbers of civilians to some of the accused in the case.
FSL unable to retrieve all data
Based on the instructions of these politicians, the police officers tapped the phones. Pertinently, the FSL has not been able to recover the complete data from the devices belonging to the accused and the summons have been issued based on the available data.
The case was registered with the Panjagutta police station on March 10. As of now, the police have named six accused of whom former SIB chief T Prabhakar Rao and A Sravan Kumar, the CEO of a vernacular TV channel, are absconding.