Pegasus snooping row: Delhi Congress leaders take out protest demanding judicial inquiry

NEW DELHI: Delhi Congress leaders and workers staged a protest near BJP headquarters here on Tuesday, demanding a judicial inquiry into the reported use of Pegasus spyware against journalists and politicians.

The protesters led by Delhi Congress president Anil Kumar marched raising slogans and carrying placards from their party office on DDU Marg to the nearby BJP headquarters. They were stopped at a barricade by the police.

Addressing the protesters, Kumar alleged the government had a role in the snooping row and termed it as a national security threat.

An international media consortium on Sunday reported that more than 300 verified mobile phone numbers, including of two serving ministers, over 40 journalists, three opposition leaders and one sitting judge besides scores of business persons and activists in India could have been targeted for hacking through the spyware.

The central government, however, dismissed allegations of any kind of surveillance on its part on specific people, saying it "has no concrete basis or truth associated with it whatsoever".