New Delhi: A former Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) arrested in a phone tapping case has now also been booked over allegations of "kidnapping" and "extortion" following a complaint filed by a businessman, PTI reported. The businessman claims he was abducted and coerced into relinquishing his company to his business partners back in 2018.
As per PTI, in the complaint lodged on April 8, the businessman, who is the founder of a healthcare services company, accused four part-time directors of colluding with Radha Kishan Rao, a former DCP of the Commissioner's Task Force, a wing of the Hyderabad Police, in orchestrating his abduction. The complaint further alleges that the former senior police official pressured the businessman into transferring shares worth Rs 100 crore in his company to the four directors.
The former DCP was apprehended in the ongoing investigation into the phone tapping case on April 29, and for allegedly destroying official data and specific computer systems.
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Following the businessman's complaint, 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 have stated that further investigation into the matter is underway.
According to the FIR, the four part-time directors of the healthcare company coerced the businessman to sell his 60 per cent stake in the company to them at a lower valuation. They purportedly approached DCP Radha Kishan Rao with a proposition to abduct and coerce the businessman to sign off the remaining shares to them and to compel him to resign from the company, promising Rao a substantial sum in return.
The complainant said that he only reported the incident to the Hyderabad City Police after Rao's arrest, urging them to conduct a thorough investigation.
The former DCP, who is currently in judicial custody, is accused of tapping a phone, along with others to develop the profiles of private persons secretly and illegally and monitor them without authorisation in the Special Intelligence Bureau (SIB). This information was allegedly exploited to favour a particular political party at the instigation of certain individuals. Rao is also accused of destroying evidence related to these crimes.
Since March 13, Hyderabad Police arrested the suspended Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) of the Special Intelligence Bureau (SIB) and two Additional Superintendents of Police for allegedly erasing the intelligence information from various electronic devices and engaging in illegal phone tapping during the previous administration.
These individuals, along with others, stand accused of secretly developing profiles of several individuals, monitoring them without authorisation, and illegally destroying certain computer systems and official data, as per police reports.
Hyderabad Police Commissioner K Sreenivasa Reddy has stated that the investigation into the phone tapping case is underway.