Pegasus row: Parliamentary IT panel summons MHA & IT ministry officials for questioning

Cracking down on the Centre on the Pegasus snooping row, the parliamentary panel on Information Technology on Wednesday has summoned officials of Ministry of Information Technology & Ministry of Home Affairs for questioning. The Shashi Tharoor-led panel has already been probing into snooping allegations using Pegasus via Whatsapp since 2020. The Centre has refuted all allegations on the issue in Parliament.

Parl panel summons MHA & I-T officials

Meanwhile, Leader of Opposition, Mallikarjuna Kharge will chair a meeting of all-like minded Opposition parties at Parliament to chalk out the future course of action in both the Houses - specially regarding Pegasus issue. Rahul Gandhi and several other MPs have given adjournment notices to debate the Pegasus snooping issue. Parliament has been in constant ruckus, leading to multiple adjournments as Opposition has demanded to debate the issue.

Pegasus row

A report by sixteen media houses claimed that 300 verified Indian mobile telephone numbers were allegedly spied upon using Israeli surveillance technology firm Pegasus - which only has 36 vetted governments as its clients. As per a 'leaked' database, numbers of those allegedly spied upon include over 40 journalists, three major opposition figures, one constitutional authority, two serving cabinet ministers, current and former heads, and officials of security organizations and businessmen. The target also includes the eight activists currently accused of the Bhima Koregaon case. The report claimed that the leaked numbers mainly belong to ten countries - India, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Morocco, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.

Immediately, Centre issued a rebuttal rubbishing the report stating that  claimed that the questionnaire sent to it was 'founded on pre-conceived notions' and that it was a fishing expedition. Similarly, 'Pegasus' owner NSO Group highlighted - 'the purpose of the list could not be conclusively determined' and the list does not 'identify who puts the numbers on it or why', refuting all allegations. Amnesty International - which conducted the investigation - stated that  50,000 numbers were snooped upon, but was unable to verify if by Pegasus. Two pleas have been filed in the Supreme Court seeking an SC-monitored probe into the allegations, while some Opposition leaders have demanded a Joint Parliametary probe into it.

On the other hand, facing global backlash for not flagging NSO group's Pegasus' alleged snooping, Israel has established a Defence Committee to review the allegations. Moreover, a Paris prosecutor’s office opened an investigation into a draft of potential charges, including violation of privacy, illegal use of data and illegally selling spyware after President Emmanuel Macron's name appeared as one of the targets of hacking. Moreover, Macron has spoken to the Israeli prime minister, to ensure that the Israeli government is “properly investigating” into snooping allegations by Morocco on him.