HYDERABAD, April 11: A former Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) arrested in the phone tapping case, has now been booked by police for “kidnapping” and “extortion” over a complaint by a businessman who said he was abducted and threatened to make him give up his company to his business partners in 2018.
In a police complaint on April 8, the businessman, who founded a healthcare services company, accused four part-time directors of the firm of having colluded with Radha Kishan Rao, former DCP of the Commissioner’s Task Force, a wing of Hyderabad Police, to get him kidnapped.
He was coerced by the then senior police official to transfer shares in his company valued at Rs 100 crore to the four directors, the complaint said.
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The former DCP was arrested on April 29 as part of an ongoing investigation into the phone tapping case, and for allegedly destroying certain computer systems and official data.
Based on the complaint of the businessman, a case was registered at Jubilee Hills Police Station against the former DCP, two policemen, the four directors and others under IPC sections 365 (kidnapping), 386 (extortion), 341 (wrongful restraint), and 120b (criminal conspiracy), police said adding further investigation was on.
As per the FIR, the four part-time directors of the healthcare company pressured the businessman to sell his 60 per cent stake in the company to them for a lower value.
They allegedly approached then DCP Radha Kishan Rao with a proposition to kidnap and coerce the businessman into signing off the remaining shares to them and to make him resign from the company. They promised to pay Rao a hefty sum.
The complainant said it was only after Rao’s arrest that he reported this incident to the Hyderabad City Police and urged them to investigate these matters thoroughly.
The former DCP, who is now in judicial custody, is accused in the phone tapping case of being a part of the conspiracy, with some other persons, in developing the profiles of private persons clandestinely and illegally, and monitoring them without authorisation in the Special Intelligence Bureau (SIB).
The information was used in a partisan manner to favour a political party at the behest of some persons, according to the police. Rao is also accused of destroying records to erase the evidence of their crimes.
A suspended Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) of the Special Intelligence Bureau (SIB) and two Additional Superintendents of Police were also arrested by Hyderabad Police since March 13 for allegedly erasing the intelligence information from various electronic gadgets as well as for alleged phone tapping during the previous BRS regime.
They, along with others, have been accused of developing profiles of several persons and monitoring them clandestinely, without authorisation and illegally, besides destroying certain computer systems and official data, police earlier said.
Hyderabad Police Commissioner K Sreenivasa Reddy on Thursday said the investigation into the phone tapping case was going on the “right lines”.
Asked if the police were contemplating issuing notices to political leaders as part of the investigation into the case, the Commissioner said, “It is going on the right lines…we will do it purely objectively and at the right time we will tell you.” (PTI)
