Hyderabad: In the continuing fight between Telangana and Andhra Pradesh over alleged theft of citizen data, Telangana government has set up a special investigation team (SIT) led by a senior IPS officer and Telugu Desam party has lodged police complaint against Telangana police.

The SIT headed by Inspector General Stephan Ravindra has taken over the cases registered by Cyberabad and Hyderabad police against IT Grid company for alleged criminal conspiracy and theft of data.

In an indication of the importance the Telangana government was giving to the case targeting Andhra Pradesh’s ruling Telugu Desam party, the SIT was constituted with nine senior officials including Kamareddy district superintendent of police N Swetha and Deputy Commissioner, Cybercrimes, Cyberabad Rohini Priyadarshini.

The matter has assumed a lot of political significance as the case of criminal conspiracy, cheating and data theft was lodged against IT Grid company on the complaint of two leaders of YSR Congress Party. While IT Grid has worked for Andhra Pradesh government in developing Sevamitra App, YSRCP alleged that the company had illegally gathered the private data of 35 million people of Andhra Pradesh and the TDP was misusing it for the election purpose.

SIT will also look into allegations that a team of AP police which visited Hyderabad had roughed up T Lokeswara Reddy, one of the complainants in the case.

Meanwhile, state Home Minister N Chinarajappa has said that Andhra Pradesh government was also planning to set up its own SIT to probe the matter and bring out the truth of the alleged data theft. Speaking to the media on Thursday he alleged that it was the opposition YSRCP which had stolen the data and was misusing to delete the voters’ names. “Jaganmohan Reddy himself has admitted that his party was trying to delete the names of the voters,” he said.

Telugu Desam party has also lodged a complaint with the police in Guntur district against the YSRCP leaders and senior Telangana police officials alleging the theft of data belonging to the TDP.

A delegation of TDP leaders led by the state party president K Kala Venkata Rao met Guntur Rural district superintendent of police SV Rajasekhara Babu late on Wednesday night and submitted a 10 page complaint alleging a conspiracy by the YSRCP and Telangana police to steal the data belonging to their party.

“The leaders of YSRCP and some senior police officials along with prominent persons from other political parties have met physically and some of them participated in the discussion over phone and hatched a plan to intimidate TDP cadre and cripple the party’s activity in connection with the ensuing elections. It was also conspired to engineer en masse request for deletion names from voters’ list which is established by several applications generated from the same IP address,” the complaint said.

Meanwhile, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu has asked the party cadre to remain alert against the conspiracy of YSRCP, TRS ad the BJP. “Having stolen our data now they are calling our people to vote for them. If you receive any such phone calls take them to task by asking how they got your number,” Naidu told the party workers in a tele conference on Thursday. All political parties in the country have their apps but TDP’s app was being targeted as part of a conspiracy, he added.

The Chief Minister alleged that 2000 workers of YSRCP have filed 800,000 applications seeking the removal of 5.9 million voters from the list. “We responded quickly and in time and foiled the conspiracy”, he said.