New Delhi: The Pegasus snooping issue – which disrupted the Monsoon Session of parliament in 2021 – again figured in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday, December 21, resulting in a heated exchange between Union home minister Amit Shah and Congress MP Gaurav Gogoi.
During a discussion on drug trafficking, the Congress MP claimed that the phones of politicians and journalists were being tapped through Pegasus spyware. Gogoi’s charge drew a sharp response from Shah who demanded that the MP provide proof for his allegations.
The two exchanged words during a discussion on drug abuse. While speaking about how drugs were entering the country, Gogoi asked the home minister, “How have you increased surveillance at airports and sea and land borders? Where do drugs enter the country from?”
He said while the government speaks about border security, he would like to know how has this security been strengthened. Then Gogoi asked: “How are you using intelligence and surveillance? You snoop on us, tap on our phones with Pegasus. You spy on journalists with Pegasus. Through Pegasus, how many drug mafia have you caught?”
Gogoi’s remark was in the context of an investigation by 80 journalists from 16 international news organisations, including The Wire, which revealed how Israeli company NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware was used to target over 300 mobile phone numbers in India. These included the phones of two serving ministers in the Narendra Modi government, three Opposition leaders, one constitutional authority, and several human rights activists, lawyers, dissidents from across the country and journalists.
Subsequently, over 500 individuals and groups had written to then Chief Justice of India N.V. Ramana seeking immediate intervention of the Supreme Court in the matter. They also demanded an immediate moratorium on the sale, transfer and use of Israeli firm NSO’s Pegasus spyware in India.
In August 2021, the apex court while hearing a bunch of eight petitions had described the allegations as “serious”. Later the same month, in an affidavit, the Union government had stated that it would set up “a committee of experts in the field which will go into all aspects of the issue”. Two months later, the Supreme Court had appointed a committee to conduct a “thorough inquiry” into the allegations of Pegasus use.
Then in August this year, the Supreme Court noted that while the panel constituted to probe the allegations had not found any conclusive evidence of the use of Pegasus, it had found unnamed ‘malware’ in at least two phones that it tested. Most significantly, the committee also said that the Union government “has not cooperated” in its probe.
But in the Lok Sabha today, Shah attacked Gogoi for raising the issue and said: “He (Gogoi) has made some serious allegations that his phone was tapped through Pegasus. Give proof, you can’t just say such things. Give House the proof… of journalists or politicians. This House is for serious discussion, not for baseless politically-motivated allegations.”
Gogoi replied that if his statement was indeed wrong then the Centre should say that it had not used Pegasus. To this, Shah said: “You give proof. The Supreme Court has already decided.”
In fact, the Pegasus Project had provided evidence in 2021 – in the form of Amnesty International’s forensic analysis of infected handsets – that the Israeli spyware was present in the phones of opposition politician Prashant Kishor, journalists MK Venu, Sushant Singh, Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, SNM Abdi and Siddharth Varadarajan, besides others.
During the discussion, Gogoi also raised the issue of increasing instances of Chinese infiltration at the border. He said: “Rahul (Gandhi) ji is saying that firm action needs to be taken against China, but the Centre is hiding behind the Army when the matter should be raised in the House.”
The issue had also figured at the start of the day’s proceedings in Lok Sabha when Opposition MPs had demanded a discussion on the matter in the House. Congress’s Leader of the House Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said, “We have been demanding a discussion on the China issue.” He urged Speaker Om Birla to “give an opportunity to the Opposition to discuss it”.
On not being allowed to discuss the China issue, the MPs from the Congress, DMK, Trinamool Congress and Janata Dal (United), staged a walkout in protest.