3 held for hate mails to IAS officer

HYDERABAD: Three persons, including an activist of People’s Union of Civil Liberties (PUCL), an advocate and a woman, were today arrested for allegedly sending `derogatory and offensive’ e-mails to a senior IAS officer in the state to malign his image. The woman claims to be having a relation with the officer, police said.

The senior IAS officer against whom the mails were spread across other members of the fraternity and to the media is A Vidyasagar, principal secretary (tribal welfare). The mails also contained content which is aimed at maligning the image of Vidyasagar’s wife, Ratna Prabha, who is also a senior IAS officer.

Cyber Crime police of the detective department investigated the case and nabbed the trio for sending the mails.

According to additional commissioner of police (detective) Amit Garg, the IAS officer received the mails from various IDs including Mara Bharat Mahan

Ramchandra Reddy ([email protected]), Jana Jaya Bheri Vande Matram Prasad Reddy ([email protected]), Fact Finding Committee  Natural ([email protected]), Natural Network Against Revenue Crimes and Economic Frauds ([email protected]) and Advocates and Journalists for Public Justice ([email protected]).

“The mails, which were highly offensive and derogatory, were sent to civil servants, people in high position and associations with a vested interest to defame the IAS officer’s name along with his wife, Ratna Prabha. The intention is nothing but character assassination and to malign their names,’’ the police said.

During investigation, the Cyber Crime police found that the original mail was generated from [email protected] and tracked down the Internet Protocol login of the mail and finally nabbed the accused.

One of the accused, B Vatsala, an agriculturalist from Kanigiri in Prakasam district, also runs a book publication house and is resident of Road No 13, Banjara Hills. She is involved in two cases of criminal intimidation in the city.

Vatsala runs Priyadarshini Publications and brings out a magazine titled Sri Asoka. “As part of her business, she started publishing books and write-ups on some IAS officers. The complainant, Vidyasagar has literary flair and Vatsala introduced herself to him and gained his confidence,’’ police said.

Vatsala claims to have had a relationship with Vidyasagar and disputes cropped up between them later. To intimidate, malign and extort money from Vidyasagar, she conspired with two others. As part of the conspiracy, another accused, 51-year-old Siva Prasad generated the hate mail and forwarded it to various government offices and to the media. Siva Prasad, a civil engineer from Kadapa district,  is a resident of Jillelaguda near Saroornagar here and member of PUCL. He was suspended from the irrigation department and two criminal cases were registered against him at Proddatur, one at Kurnool and two at the cyber crime police station in Hyderabad. In the case registered against him in Kurnool, he was accused of demanding Rs 25 lakh from an IFS officer. Siva Prasad had been resorting to such crimes by using his clout as a PUCL member, police said. The third accused, 47-year-old A Venkata Ramana, is an advocate from Miyapur here.

Police found that the trio also tried to extort money from five senior civil services officials including an IFS officer. “They have details of more than 2,000 mail IDs with them,’’ police said.

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