'Our Hopes Rest on Supreme Court': Key Congress Leader Targets Modi Gov't Over Pegasus Spyware
07:14 GMT 09.08.2021 (Updated: 11:42 GMT 10.12.2022)
© AFP 2023 / SUJIT JAISWAL
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The Pegasus snooping row has hit the Indian government hard as the opposition is consistently accusing it of being behind the spying on Indian journalists and opposition leaders. The Modi government has denied any role in the scandal, while the opposition has repeatedly disrupted parliament sessions, demanding an inquiry into the matter.
P. Chidambaram, a key leader from India's main opposition party, Congress, has targeted the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government over the Pegasus snooping scandal and slammed the Indian media for shifting focus from the issue.
In a series of tweets over the weekend, the well-known critic of the Modi government and a former federal finance minister cited a report by The Economist stating that India is among the 10 countries affected by the Pegasus spyware scandal.
Criticising a section of Indian dailies on Twitter, Chidambaram said the world does not read India's timid newspapers, that have pushed the story from their front pages. "Our hopes rest on the Supreme Court", he remarked.
The ECONOMIST magazine has reported that India is among ten countries that had, in all, a potential list of 50,000 telephone numbers out of which hundreds of numbers were infiltrated.
— P. Chidambaram (@PChidambaram_IN) August 8, 2021
NSO Group admitted to have 40 countries and 60 agencies as its clients.
Ten of those countries used Pegasus spyware for spying. Was India one, is the question.
— P. Chidambaram (@PChidambaram_IN) August 8, 2021
The world reads Economist, Time, New York Times, Guardian etc.
The world does not read the timid Indian newspapers that have pushed the story from their pages after a few days.
— P. Chidambaram (@PChidambaram_IN) August 8, 2021
Our hopes rest on the Supreme Court.
On 5 August, the Supreme Court of India stated that the Pegasus spyware controversy was a serious affair if the developments being reported by the media are to be believed, as it heard a set of petitions filed by members of the media community seeking a swift investigation into the matter.
While hearing the petitions, a two-member bench, headed by Chief Justice N.V. Ramana said: "No doubt the allegations are serious, if the reports on it are correct. The truth has to come out".
India's top court also directed the petitioners, including the Editors Guild of India, to serve a copy of their petitions to the Bharatiya Janata Party-led federal government.
The next hearing in the case is scheduled for this week and representatives from the government have also been summoned.
A global media consortium revealed that 50,000 devices could've been targeted by the Israeli-made spyware Pegasus, as the outlets published their investigation into the suspected widespread use of the software to target journalists, human rights activists, and politicians worldwide. The spyware's developer, the Israeli firm NSO Group, claims the tool was created and used solely for the purpose of spying on dangerous criminals and terrorists.
