Retired police officer P. Radhakishan Rao, who was arrested in the case of ‘developing profiles of unknown persons and monitoring them’, admitted to investigators that he ‘utilised police officers and vehicles allotted to Task Force for transportation of cash during 2023 Telangana Assembly elections in support of BRS party’.
The confessional statement of Rao in the remand case diary said that he used police officers and vehicles at his command for transportation of money to escape from getting it seized by Flying Squad Teams and Static Surveillance Teams. According to the report, a sub-inspector of Hyderabad Police Commissioner’s Task Force (Central) team Sai Kiran escorted ‘huge cash in government vehicle from various locations and handed over to one Divya Charan Rao, a retired police officer working at Yashoda hospital, two times’.
At the behest of Radhakishan Rao, according to the report, the SI met Divya Charan Rao at Yashoda hospital. The latter sent a person to collect ₹1 crore from Ranigunj. The SI collected this money and delivered it to Yashoda hospital at Secunderabad, the report states. On another occasion, the SI (accompanied by a person introduced by Divya Charan Rao) collected ₹1 crore and passed it on to Charan Rao.
In another task, as per the report, he instructed Sai Kiran to escort transportation of cash belonging to BRS MLC Venkatram Reddy (former IAS officer). The former DCP of TF provided a new iPhone with SIM card sent by one Charan Reddy alias Charan ‘exclusively for this clandestine cash transportation’. Mr. Rao told the investigators that Venkatram Reddy was his childhood and family friend and hence obliged the request from the latter to transportation of money.
As per Mr. Rao’s instruction, Sai Kiran met the MLC’s neighbour Charan Reddy at Rajapushpa Green Dale villas at Tellapur. According to the report, the former DCP made the SI believe that the MLC was transporting the money to help a citizen meet an emergency situation. The SI collected ₹1 crore from different locations and handed over the same to Charan Reddy. In the third week of October, 2023 also the SI escorted ₹2 crore (on two different days with ₹1 crore each time) and delivered the same to Charan Reddy.
The report stated that the SI later declined to such cash transportation work having become suspicious of the officer’s instructions.
