At least two phone numbers of top Congress leader Rahul Gandhi were reportedly selected for surveillance through Pegasus spyware, the Guardian --- part of the global media consortium that led an investigation into how the Israeli spyware was used to target journalists, activists and govt officials worldwide -- reported.
Those selected included not only Gandhi but some of his staff members and close friends, the investigation revealed.
Other top targets in India included political advisor Prashant Kishor, who helped Mamata Banerjee win Bengal elections, Gagandeep Kang, a professor at the Wellcome Trust Research Laboratory of Christian Medical College, Vellore, and one of India's leading medical scientists, former election commissioner Ashok Lavasa and several others. In the case of Prashant Kishor, a forensic analysis reportedly showed his phone was compromised as recently as July 14.
Lavasa had, during the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, dissented the Election Commission’s decision to give clean chits to Prime Minster Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah for alleged poll code violations.
Another big name in the list was India's newly-appointed IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw. Interestingly, earlier during the day, Vaishnaw, dismissed media reports on the use of Pegasus software to snoop on journalists. He said the allegations levelled just ahead of the Monsoon session of Parliament are aimed at maligning Indian democracy.
In a suo motu statement in Lok Sabha, Vaishnaw said that with several checks and balances being in place, "any sort of illegal surveillance" by unauthorised persons is not possible in India.
Reacting to the development, the opposition including the Congress has slammed the Central Government, accusing it of snooping on opposition and journalists.
The Congress, in its statement alleged the government was the "deployer and executor of the snooping and spying racket through Israeli surveillance software Pegasus".
Randeep Surjewala, the party's main spokesperson, claimed that the government is listening to the bedroom conversations of people.
"Prime Minister and Home Minister are involved in snooping on Opposition leaders including Rahul Gandhi, journalists and even Union ministers. Before a probe, Amit Shah should resign and an inquiry should be conducted against Modi," Leader of Opposition (LoP) in Rajya Sabha, Mallikarjun Kharge said.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi took a swipe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the matter using the hashtag "Pegasus".
The BJP, meanwhile, hit out at the Congress over its attack on the central government, and claimed that there is not a "shred of evidence" to link either the ruling party or the Modi dispensation with the matter.
Addressing a press conference, senior BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad also questioned the credentials of those behind the story, alleging that The Wire, the news portal which broke it in India, had been earlier associated with stories which have been found to be "incorrect" while Amnesty International has a declared "anti-India" agenda in many ways.
On Sunday, the global consortium led by the Washington Post, the Guardian, and number of other media organisations revealed that Israeli spyware was used to allegedly compromise 300 mobile phone numbers in India. These included numbers of two serving Union ministers, three Opposition leaders, one constitutional authority, current and former heads of security organisations, administrators and 40 senior journalists and activists.
The Post reported that more than 1,000 phone numbers in India appeared on the list. However, the consortium could only verify the identities of the people associated with more than 300 of the numbers in India.
The data was accessed by the non-profit journalism organisation Forbidden Stories and Amnesty International and shared with the global media consortium as part of the Pegasus project.
The spyware that infiltrated phones is called Pegasus. It unlocks critical information of the target’s mobile phone without even any inducement from the user. The spyware developed by NSO Group, an Israeli firm says, it sells the spyware exclusively to government agencies to combat terrorism and other serious crimes.
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