AMN / WEB DESK
Union Minister for Information Technology and Communications Ashwini Vaishnaw today emphatically denied all charges of snooping as false and baseless. In a statement in the Lok Sabha in the Pegasus Project, Mr Vaishnaw requested all members of the House to examine issues on facts and logic. He said, the basis of this report is that there is a consortium that has got access to a leaked database of 50,000 phone numbers. He said, the allegation is that individuals linked to these phone numbers for being spied upon.
The minister, However, said the report says that the presence of a phone number in the data does not reveal whether was a device was infected by Pegasus or subjected to an attempted hack. Mr Vaishnaw said, Without subjecting the phone to this technical analysis, it’s not possible to conclusively state whether it witnessed an attempted hack or successfully compromised. He said, the report itself clarifies that presence of a number in list doesn’t amount to snooping. The minister also questioned the timing of this story in a website on the eve of the Monsoon session of Parliament. Mr Vaishnaw said, any form of illegal surveillance isn’t possible with checks and balances in our laws and robust institutions. He said, In India, there’s a well-established procedure through which lawful interception of electronic communication is carried out for purpose of national security.
Former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi, BJP ministers Ashwini Vaishnaw and Prahlad Singh Patel, as also former Election Commissioner Ashok Lavasa and poll strategist Prashant Kishor were among those whose phone numbers were listed as potential “targets” for hacking through an Israeli spyware sold only to the government agencies, an international media consortium reported on Monday.
The Wire news portal, in the second part of its revelations from the international collaborative investigation called the Pegasus Project, reported that the phone number of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s nephew and TMC MP Abhishek Banerjee and 11 phone numbers belonging to the Supreme Court staffer and her close relatives, who accused former Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi of sexual harassment in April 2019, were selected as targets for surveillance.
On the other hand the BJP today refuted and condemned the comments of Congress on Pegasus Project and called them baseless and bereft of political propriety.
Briefing media, senior BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad said this is a new low in the political discourse of a party which has ruled India for more than 50 years. He said not a shred of evidence has come during the entire Pegasus story that has any linkage with the Government or BJP.
He said it is of paramount importance to reveal all facts in front of the nation. He said any form of illegal surveillance is not possible with checks and balances in country’s laws and robust institutions. He said it cannot be denied that bodies like Amnesty had a declared anti-India agenda in many ways. Mr Prasad added that Amnesty withdrew from India when asked about their foreign funding as per law.