Caught unawares in the cash-for-vote scam and alleged phone tapping by Telangana state, Andhra Pradesh police is desperate to out beat it in gathering intelligence. So, poor was the intelligence preparedness of Andhra Pradesh  that their inability to keep tabs on activities of MLAs led to the shunting out of Intelligence boss Anuradha  last week. Now they realized that they also need advanced technology to snoop around the suspects, politicians, officials, criminals etc.  They wanted to acquire cellular interception technology from an Italian company at a cost of $1 million last month.

According to WikiLeaks, which released a million mails from Hacking Team, an Italian spyware company, that supplies the intercepting software and hardware to various police wings in India, was contacted by AP for the technology. Company’s contact list includes Special Intelligence Branch, Andhra Pradesh  Police; Intelligence Branches of Karnataka, Gujarat; special branch and economic offenses wing of Delhi Police, anti-terrorism squad of Mumbai Police, and Cabinet Secretariat of Government of India. Even the RAW, the external spy agency of India, is in touch with the Hacking Team to acquire some surveillance software.