NEW DELHI, 23 Jul: Several opposition MPs, including Congress’ Rahul Gandhi, on Friday protested against the government inside Parliament complex over the Pegasus snooping issue and demanded a Supreme Court-monitored judicial probe into the matter.
Besides Gandhi, a host of senior Congress MPs like leader of opposition in Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge, the party’s leader in Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, KC Venugopal and Shashi Tharoor, the DMK’s Kanimozhi and the Shiv Sena’s Priyanka Chaturvedi, were present during the protest in front of Mahatma Gandhi’s statue inside Parliament complex.
Carrying a banner which read “#PegasusSnoopGate We demand Supreme Court Monitored Judicial Probe”, the MPs
raised slogans like “ye jasoosi bandh karo (stop this spying).”
Opposition parties have stalled proceedings in Parliament, alleging the union government’s involvement in the alleged snooping, following reports that nearly 300 mobile phone numbers, including of journalists, activists, opposition leaders from India and even of union ministers figured in a list of potential snooping targets by Israel’s NSO group which sells its Pegasus spyware only to “vetted” governments and government agencies.
The government and the ruling BJP have dismissed the Pegasus Project reports as concocted and evidence-less.
The media reports have been published by The Wire in collaboration with 16 other international publications, including the Washington Post, The Guardian and Le Monde, as media partners to an investigation conducted by Paris-based media non-profit organization Forbidden Stories and rights group Amnesty International. (PTI)
