Pegasus row: Pakistan raises concern over India's spying operations

Pakistan on Friday expressed serious concern over global media reports about India allegedly snooping on foreigners, journalists, politicians, including Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan, using Israeli based NSO group’s Pegasus spyware.

New Delhi: Pakistan on Friday expressed serious concern over global media reports about India allegedly snooping on foreigners, journalists, politicians, including Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan, using Israeli based NSO group’s Pegasus spyware. In response to a media query regarding India’s use of Israeli spyware-Pegasus to hack the phones of its citizens, Pakistan’s Foreign Office spokesperson Zahid Hafeez Chaudhri in a statement said, “We have noted with serious concern recent international media reports exposing Indian government’s organized spying operations against its citizens, foreigners as well as Prime Minister Imran Khan, using an Israeli origin spyware”.

The statement also condemned in the strongest possible terms what it called, “India’s state-sponsored, continuing and widespread surveillance and spying operations in clear breach of global norms of responsible state behaviour”. “We are closely following these revelations and will bring the Indian abuses to the attention of appropriate global platforms”, said the spokesperson. Also, Pakistan has urged the United Nations to investigate the matter thoroughly.

Among the potential targets of Pegasus spyware were several world leaders including Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan, French President Emmanuel Macron and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and hundreds of government officials. India, on July 19, defended itself over allegations of using Israeli spyware that created havoc in the country, by calling it an attempt to malign the Democracy and its well-established institutions.

India’s IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnav had reiterated that illegal surveillance was not possible with checks and balances in the country’s law. Minister of State for external affairs Meenakshi Lekhi on Thursday said that the story on the alleged snooping through Israeli spyware Pegasus is concocted, fabricated and evidence-less.

Days after the shocking revelations, Amnesty International on Thursday refuted media reports, saying it was a false allegation in social media and inaccurate media stories about the Pegasus project. “Amnesty International categorically stands by the findings of the Pegasus project, and that the data is irrefutably linked to potential targets of NSO group’s Pegasus spyware”, it added.

Meanwhile, as the jaw-dropping revelations of phones of journalists, politicians, rights activists being hacked has raised privacy concern, Israel has established a committee to review the allegations of misuse of NSO group’s surveillance software and hinted at a possible review of the whole matter of giving licenses.