Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, July 19: Under vicious attack from the opposition for “allowing” a spyware to keep a tab on some of the Indian politicians, activists and journalists, the union home minister Amit Shah claimed that the report in a section of the media over the alleged misuse of the Israeli software Pegasus had been deliberately placed to disrupt the functioning of Parliament which began its monsoon session on Monday.
“This is a report by the disrupters for the obstructers. Disrupters are global organisations which do not like India to progress. Obstructers are political players in India who do not want India to progress. People of India are very good at understanding this chronology and connection,” he added.
Among the names on the list of potential targets of snooping besides some journalists are Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, Trinamool Congress leader Abhishek Banerjee and election strategist Prashant Kishor. Two union ministers, Prahlad Patel and Ashwini Vaishnaw, are also on the list. So are around 40 journalists.
The Congress accused the government of “treason” and compromising on national security and demanded an investigation into the role of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Amit Shah.
“Our first demand is the immediate sacking of Minister of Home and Internal security Amit Shah and a probe into the role of the Prime Minister in the matter,” Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said.
The Wire, which is part of a media consortium investigating alleged surveillance using Pegasus – only available to the government – said at least two mobile phone accounts used by Rahul Gandhi were among 300 verified Indian numbers listed as potential targets by an official client of the Israeli surveillance technology vendor, the NSO Group.
Gandhi’s numbers, which he has since given up, appear to have been selected for targeting from between 2018 and mid-2019, when the national elections were held. The Congress said the government was “listening to bedroom conversations” and mocked the ruling BJP as “Bharatiya Jasoos (spy) Party”.
Pegasus targets include two current Union Ministers – Prahlad Patel and Ashwini Vaishnaw – according to The Wire. The leaked list had phone numbers not just of Patel and his wife but 15 people linked to him, including his cook and gardener.
Ashwini Vaishnaw joined Modi’s cabinet recently and replaced Ravi Shankar Prasad as IT Minister. He appears to have been targeted for possible surveillance in 2017, when he was neither a minister nor an MP, not even a member of the BJP.
As IT minister, Vaishnaw defended the government in parliament earlier today, saying there was “no substance” behind the sensational claims. It was “no coincidence” that the news broke a day before the start of the monsoon session of parliament, he said. He described the allegations as “over-the-top” and added there was “no substance” behind the claims.
Virologist Gagandeep Kang, was a possible target of surveillance in 2018, while tackling the Nipah infection. Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s nephew Abhishek Banerjee is also on the list. The family members of a woman who in 2019 accused then Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi of sexual harassment were also potentially targeted.
Among the other high-profile targets is Prashant Kishor, who played a big role in the BJP’s 2014 campaign strategy that catapulted Modi to power. Kishor has since worked with clients mostly opposed to the BJP. Recently, he was credited with helping Mamata Banerjee defeat the BJP in Bengal. Kishor’s phone was compromised as recently as July 14, according to a forensic analysis.
Another name is that of Ashok Lavasa, a former Election Commissioner who had a dissenting opinion when the powerful election body decided on a clean chit on poll complaints against Modi and Amit Shah in 2019. He even stopped attending meetings saying “minority decisions” were being “suppressed in a manner contrary to well-established conventions observed by multi-member statutory bodies”.
More than 300 phone numbers in India appeared on the list, according to a months-long collaborative investigation by The Wire, The Washington Post and other media partners in 10 countries. Besides key politicians, over 40 Indian journalists and a constitutional authority were also found on the database of NSO as connected to people of interest since 2016, The Wire has reported.
Amid the tumult over reports of snooping in multiple nations through Israeli spyware Pegasus, former Union IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad has questioned why only India is being “targeted” for the use of the spyware when 45 nations are using it. Prasad, who handled the IT ministry in 2019 when news of surveillance through Pegasus first broke, had defended the government. This time too, the Centre had stuck to its position that “no unauthorised interception” has taken place.
The former minister added a fresh angle to the mix this evening. “If more than 45 nations are using Pegasus, like NSO has said, why is only India being targeted?”
“The NSO, which is the manufacturer of Pegasus, has clearly said that its clients are mostly Western nations. So why is India being targetted in this matter? What is the story behind this? What is the twist in the tale?” he added.
Most of the numbers identified in the alleged list of possible targets are from India, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Morocco, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, news portal “The Wire” has reported.
“Can we deny that bodies like Amnesty have an anti-India agenda?” he said, referring to the Amnesty International which had released the lists along with Paris-based media non-profit Forbidden Stories, on which multiple media organisations in India and abroad had conducted detailed investigations.
Denying any role of government yet again, Prasad said, “There not a shred of evidence in the entire Pegasus story that there is any linkage of the government or the BJP.” The question of the government involvement had come up following the categorical statement from NSO since beginning — that they supply their software only to “vetted governments” and their agencies.
In 2019, when WhatsApp had alleged that many of its user’s accounts had been compromised by the use of Pegasus, Prasad had termed the allegations of government involvement an “attempt to malign” its image.
But even as the union home minister tried to convince the opposition by “understanding the chronology of the events,” criticism of the alleged use of spyware has come from an unexpected quarter, the JD(U), an ally of the NDA which only last week joined the Modi cabinet.
Talking to media persons in Patna, the Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar said new technologies were being used to disturb and trouble people and hinder their work. In a strong disapproval of reports of journalists, judges, and ministers in India being targeted with Pegasus spyware, he said such acts of snooping was “dirty” and “worthless”.
“All this is dirty. This is worthless. It is not good to disturb anyone like this. All this new technology that has come…and its misuse…the effect it has…people are troubled…their work gets hindered,” Kumar told the media on Monday after his Janata Durbar.
The Congress demanded sacking of Amit Shah and investigating the prime minister over the alleged misuse of the spyware. It alleged that the government can now listen to “bedroom conversations.” The main opposition party alleged that the Modi government was the “deployer and executor” of the “spying racket” through Israeli surveillance software Pegasus.
“This is clearly ‘treason’ and total abdication of ‘national security’ by the Modi government, more so when the foreign company could possibly have access to this data,” a Congress statement said.
Explaining the functioning of the spyware and how it could affect people, Congress spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala cautioned that Pegasus could be installed in “your daughter or your wife’s phone.”
“If you are in the washroom, in your bedroom…whatever conversation you are having, you daughter, your wife, your family is having, the Modi government will be able to eavesdrop on it,” Surjewala said at a press conference.
“The person responsible for it is none less than the Home Minister of India, Shri Amit Shah. Of course, it could not be done without the consent and concurrence of the Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi. This is an unforgivable sacrilege and negation of Constitutional oath by the Home Minister and the Prime Minister,” the Congress statement said.