KTR to send legal notice to Congress leaders for phone tapping allegations

Hyderabad, April 2 (IANS) Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) working president K. T. Rama Rao on Tuesday said he would serve legal notice on two Congress leaders, including a Telangana minister, for defamation and slander after they made allegations that he had ordered phone tapping when BRS was in power in the state.

Environment and Forests Minister Konda Surekha also claimed that Rama Rao had indulged in phone tapping and threatened film actresses.

"Both these Congress fellows (including the minister) will be served legal notices for defamation & slander. Either Apologise for these shameful, baseless & nonsensical allegations or face legal consequences," KTR posted on 'X' while reacting to two news reports.

"Also will be serving legal notices to news outlets who are dishing out this garbage without verifying the facts," added the BRS leader.

Congress leader from Sircilla, K. Mahender Reddy and Mahabubnagar MLA Yennam Srinivas Reddy had on Monday met Hyderabad Police Commissioner K. Sreenivasa Reddy, seeking probe into KTR's alleged role in phone tapping.

MLA Srinivas Reddy had already lodged a complaint with DGP Ravi Gupta about the tapping of his phones ahead of the polls. He claimed that this was done on the orders of a former BRS minister.

Mahender Reddy said that based on phone tapping, senior political leaders threatened him not to encourage BRS corporators of Rajanna Sircilla district from joining the Congress.

Konda Surekha also alleged on Monday that KTR indulged in phone tapping and threatened film actresses.

The minister cited the confession statements of police officers accused of phone tapping. They reportedly confessed that they had snooped on the phones of top Tollywood personalities, shared the details and had even extorted some of them.

Police have already arrested four police officials in a phone tapping case. They include former DCP, Task Force, Radha Kishan Rao. The probe team has also served a lookout notice for former chief of Special Intelligence Branch (SIB) Prabhakar Rao.

A team of officers in SIB allegedly tapped phones of rival political leaders and their families and dissidents within the ruling party.