Prime accused in the phone tapping case, SIB former chief Prabhakar Rao, arrives for questioning before the Hyderabad police, at Jubilee Police station on Monday

HYDERABAD: During the first day of questioning, former Special Intelligence Bureau (SIB) chief T Prabhakar Rao – prime accused in the alleged illegal phone tapping of opposition leaders before 2023 assembly polls – said he had fled to the US last year after getting prior information that he might be “targeted”. Prabhakar Rao, however, did not disclose the insiders who provided him the information.Rao came to Jubilee Hills police station around noon and the questioning went on for nearly seven hours till 7 pm. He was quizzed by ACP (Jubilee Hills) Venkatagiri.Rao arrived in India on Sunday night from the US after evading police for 15 months. He returned to India after the Supreme Court recently allowed restoration of his passport (which was revoked) and granted protection from arrest – provided he immediately made himself available to cops probing the phone tapping case. Rao, who quit as SIB chief on Dec 4, a day after BRS lost the 2023 elections, had fled the country to the US from Chennai airport after the Congress govt began the phone tapping probe.On Monday, the former SIB chief cross-questioned the investigators as to why he was being singled out when he worked under a certain system.He admitted setting up a Special Operations Team (SOT) led by deputy superintendent of police D Praneet Rao in SIB in 2018. As SIB was meant for gathering anti-naxalite information, Rao was quizzed about what SOT did in gathering such inputs. He told cops that SOT was used for confidential work and did not do anything related to naxalites. He was also probed about why the BRS govt re-appoint him after his retirement and continued with him as SIB chief.Sources said that he was not asked anything directly on phone tapping on Monday. He will be questioned again on Wednesday and it is expected that police will probe him on specifics of illegal surveillance on then opposition leaders, including chief minister A Revanth Reddy, and his family during BRS tenure.