Congress claimed today phone of opposition leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra was hacked by the government. A day before West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said the same. Similarly, former Union minister from Sharad Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party came forward on the phone tapping note.
Political leaders are coming forward with such claims amid allegation of Facebook, parent company of WhatsApp, that the chat platform was compromised by Israeli cybersecurity company NSO to spread spyware Pegasus.
About 1,400 users were targeted with the spyware of NSO Group across twenty nations and 121 of them were from India including activists, journalists, lawyers and senior government officials for a two-week period in April, which means just before the general elections.
Congress leader Randeep Surjewala said, “When WhatsApp sent messages to all those whose phones were hacked, one such message was also received by Priyanka Gandhi Vadra.”
According to Gandhi’s team, the leader didn’t take the message seriously and so later deleted it after reading.
Congress today leveled the ruling BJP party as Bharatiya Jasoos Party and questioned the government on its silence despite knowing the issue.
Surjewala added, “On September 12, the IT Minister met the Vice-President of Facebook, but he didn’t raise the hacking issue.”
Congress leader Ravi Shankar Prasad claimed the government knew about the phone hacking issue in April but no PIB release was released.
He added that the spyware infection was a very serious one as it even infected Bharti Airtel, Star Broadband Services, Atria Convergence, Hathway Cable Internet and state-owned MTNL.
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