Bala Chauhan By Express News Service BENGALURU: Faraz — the mysterious alleged power broker with who the incumbent City Police Commissioner Bhaskar Rao has purportedly had a conversation in the controversial audio tape — has emerged as a “middle man,” who runs a small-time business in Basavanagudi and Chamarajpet in Bengaluru. “Faraz is actually a fixer and a small-time power broker, who is reportedly known to many senior IPS officers in Karnataka and politicians. He also allegedly plays the role of a police informant and is paid in cash or kind for his information services. The nature of his work is such that he is privy to a lot of sensitive information about officers and politicians, who cultivate such people to spy on their rivals for their self-interests. It is possible that Faraz was under surveillance to know who was tapping him and for what reason,” said a senior officer on condition of anonymity. “It is yet to be verified whether Faraz was actually close to the Congress central leadership or he was just dropping names. It is also possible that Rao fell into a staged trap of a taped conversation, when the then chief minister H D Kumaraswamy had decided to change the Bengaluru City Police Commissioner,” the officer added. The interim report on the audio tape, meanwhile, which was submitted to the DG&IGP on Monday, reportedly mentions the name of an Additional Director General of Police, who on August 2 had allegedly asked a CCB Inspector, posted in technical wing, to download the controversial audio tape in a pen drive and hand it over to him. “The scope of the investigation should be wider now. Any leakage of call intercepts amounts to data theft and is an offence under the Information Technology Act, Telegraph Act and Official Secrets Act,” said another officer, who didn’t wish to be named.

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