Snoopgate: Congress seeks judicial probe

BENGALURU: Senior Congress leaders, protesting against alleged illegal snooping using Pegasus spyware and demanding a judicial probe into it, were taken into custody by police after they tried to march towards Raj Bhavan here on Thursday.

Former chief minister Siddaramaiah, KPCC president DK Shivakumar and KPCC working presidents, and party MLAs and MLCs were stopped near General Post Office, while they were marching towards Raj Bhavan from Vidhana Soudha. They were released later.

Siddaramaih accused the Union Government of being directly involved in illegal surveillance and demanded a judicial probe headed by a Supreme Court judge. “The Union Government should stop this dirty game. It is a major crime,” he said.

In a memorandum addressed to the President, the Congress said by tapping the phones of its leaders and their staff, the BJP had engineered the resignation of 17 MLAs from Congress and JDS. “The BJP leaders might have tapped the phones of leaders from Madhya Pradesh and other states and toppled the governments there too... which is against the mandate given by the people and provisions of the Constitution,” the memorandum read.