The Panjagutta police took the now suspended Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) of the Special Intelligence Bureau (SIB) into custody on late Tuesday night. He was booked for tampering with evidence, breach of trust, and other criminal offences during his stint in the crime records bureau of SIB
D. Praneeth Kumar alias Praneeth Rao, who was working in the District Crime Records Bureau (DCRB) of the Special Intelligence Bureau (SIB), was earlier booked for criminal breach of trust, criminal trespass, tampering with evidence, and criminal conspiracy.
Sources from the police confirmed that he was arrested from his residence in Srinagar Colony of Rajanna-Sircilla district late Tuesday night. “He was brought to the Panjagutta Police Station and his statement was recorded. His phone is seized and sent to the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL),” said the officials. He will be questioned about the contents of the destroyed hard disks.
Police booked a case against him following a complaint from D. Ramesh, the Additional Superintendent of Police (SP) with the SIB. The SP had stated that there has been a concerning pattern of behaviour by Praneeth during his time as an Inspector and later as DSP with the SIB from 2018 to 2023.
He further stated that Praneeth Kumar has been misusing and abusing his official position by ‘always illegally copying intelligence information into his personal drives such as pen drive, external disks etc. which were in his custody, most likely with the collusion of unknown persons and in order to shield his criminal acts, he resorted to erasing of entire information by way of dismantling the systems including external hard discs, by personally supervising the process of destruction unauthorisedly and illegally’.
Praneeth had dismantled and destroyed equipment containing data/information by turning off the cameras on the night of December 4, 2023, the day Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) lost the Telangana Assembly Elections-2023. He also destroyed old hard drives which contained data gathered over decades and replaced them with new ones.
The FIR of the case cites various sections of the IPC relevant to the alleged offences, including breach of trust, criminal trespass, tampering with evidence, and criminal conspiracy under sections 409, 427, 201 and 120 (B). Additionally, cases were also booked under the Prevention of Destruction of Public Records Act (PDPP Act) 1984 and the Information Technology Act (ITA) sections concerning data tampering and illegal access.
