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Union minister Anurag Thakur on Friday hit out at Rahul Gandhi for “lying and defaming India” days after the Congress leader alleged in his lecture at Cambridge University that Israeli spyware Pegasus was used to snoop on him.
“This raises questions on the agenda of the Congress,” Thakur said. He added Gandhi was again raising a hue and cry on foreign soil. Thakur underlined respect for India has increased globally under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s leadership.
In a tweet, BJP spokesman Shehzad Poonawalla attacked Gandhi as an “entitled dynast” and a serial offender. He added Gandhi’s hatred for “one person transcends into hatred for the country time and again”.
Poonawalla said ironically Gandhi’s grandmother, Indira Gandhi, imposed Emergency in the 1970s when she was the Prime Minister. “…he [Rahul Gandhi] preaches about democracy! What more can one say!” he tweeted.
In his lecture, Gandhi spoke about democratic backsliding and said intelligence officers warned him to be careful while speaking on the phone as his calls were being recorded using Pegasus.
A Supreme Court-appointed committee of experts found no evidence of the use of Pegasus spyware to snoop on the 29 phones it examined even as the panel complained that the government did not assist it in the probe.
Some malware was detected on five of the 29 phones the panel examined. But there was nothing to show it was Pegasus, the court said last year.
The government in August 2021 refused to confirm or deny whether it used Pegasus spyware for the surveillance of Indians. It contended that such disclosure would be against national interest while responding to petitions of lawyers, politicians, journalists, and civil rights activists over spyware use.
The expert panel was set up to investigate whether the Centre or any state government acquired and used Pegasus for surveillance of Indian citizens, and to also ascertain details of people targeted.
The Pegasus row erupted in July 2021 after an international consortium of media outlets and investigative journalists reported that the phones of Indian ministers, politicians, activists, businessmen, and journalists were among the 50,000 potentially targeted using Pegasus.
Pegasus can switch on a target’s phone camera and microphone. It can access data on the device, effectively turning the phone into a pocket spy.
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