Hyderabad City Police was sent a legal notice seeking information and an immediate end to surveillance activities which includes going through phones and chat details of passers-by to allegedly look for Ganja-related conversations. In the legal notice sent by independent privacy and security researcher Srinivas Kodali, with assistance from the Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF), Kodali argued that the phone-checking drive was not backed by a judicial warrant and hence, not permissible under the law. He requested Hyderabad City Police Commissioner Anjani Kumar to stop the search activities and take action against the police officials who were taking up such operations under Hyderabad Police Act 1348 Fajli; else he said that he "would seek further legal remedy including but not limited to approaching appropriate judicial fora". It is clear and apparent that the questioned activity is not backed by judicial warrants, nor is it part of any ongoing investigation requiring such mass-scale invasion of citizens' privacy. The citizens on whose mobile phones some allegedly objectionable content is being found are being sent to police stations. This suggests that the police officers are engaging in a roving and fishing inquiry with no legal basis — Kodali in his legal notice to Hyderabad Police First reported by Hyderabad-based Urdu daily Siasat, the Hyderabad Police has been setting up these checkpoints at various parts of the city including Jummerat Bazaar, Bhoiguda Kaman, Dhoolpet, Mangalhat, and so on. As per the video, the cops, working in three different shifts, appear to be stopping people whom…
