Telangana sets up SIT to probe Cash for MLAs case

The Government Order (GO) No: 63 issued by the state’s Home Department said that the SIT was constituted at the request of the Director General of Police M Mahender Reddy.

The GO said the DGP desired that officers of experience be drafted for the SIT since the case was “sensitive, high-profile, and sensational in nature”, and involved investigation in “multiple dimensions” which required a “scientific and evidence-based probe in an elaborate manner”.

The police have already registered a case under the Prevention of Corruption Act of 1988 against the three accused — Ramachandra Bharathi, Sima Yajulu, and Nanda Kumar — on the basis of a complaint lodged by Tandur MLA Pilot Rohit Reddy.

Meanwhile, the police also moved a petition for custody of the three accused for one week in ACB court in Nampally. The court granted two-day custody to the police.

The accused persons are now in judicial custody in Chanchalguda prison. The police are likely to take their custody on Thursday.

Also read: Cash-for-MLAs: How Karnataka, Maharashtra govts were toppled

The move comes even as Telangana Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan on Wednesday accused the TRS of tapping her phone.

Tearing into Telangana’s ruling party for allegedly resorting to unethical practices, she said if her phone had not been tapped, how could TRS tweet that “Raj Bhavan and Tushar” were involved in the “incident”?

She did not identify the incident by name, but it seemed obvious that she was referring to the Aziznagar farmhouse drama where three “emissaries of the BJP” attempted to entice TRS MLAs into joining the saffron party.

“The Tushar I spoke to is my former ADC [aide-de-camp]. He is different from the Tushar who figured in the farmhouse drama, but the TRS did not know the difference,” she said, asserting that it only showed that they had tapped her phone.