Who funded Pegasus snooping, asks Sanjay Raut, compares it with Hiroshima bombing

Sanjay Raut. File Pic

Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut on Sunday asked who funded the alleged snooping of politicians and journalists by Pegasus and compared it with the Hiroshima bombing, saying while the attack on the Japanese city had resulted in death of people, the spying by the Israeli software led to "death of freedom".

"The modern technology has taken us back to slavery," Raut said in his weekly column 'Rokhthok' in the Sena mouthpiece Saamana.

He said the Pegasus case is "no different from the atomic bomb attack on Hiroshima".

"People died in Hiroshima, while in the Pegasus case, it led to the death of freedom," he claimed.

He said politicians, industrialists and social activists fear they are being spied upon, and even the judiciary and media are under the same pressure.

"The atmosphere of freedom in the national capital ended a few years ago," said Raut, who is the executive editor of Saamana.

He also sought to know who paid for the alleged snooping by the Israeli spyware.

Also read: Pegasus issue: Rajya Sabha MP moves Supreme Court seeking court-monitored probe

Quoting a media report, he said the Israeli company NSO charged Rs 60 crore annually as license (fee) for the Pegasus software.

By way of one license, 50 phones can be hacked. Hence, to tap 300 phones, six to seven licenses are required, the Rajya Sabha member said.

"Was so much money spent? Who paid for it? The NSO says it sells its software only to governments. If it is so, which government in India purchased the software?

Rs 300 crore were spent for spying on 300 people in India. Does our country have the capacity to spend so much money on spying?" Raut asked.

He also said BJP leader (and former Union IT minister) Ravishankar Prasad had justified spying by saying 45 countries in the world used Pegasus.

Raut, whose party shares power with the NCP and Congress in Maharashtra, claimed that journalists who criticised the Modi government were snooping targets.

An international media consortium had recently reported that several verified mobile phone numbers, including of some ministers, journalists, opposition leaders, and scores of business persons and activists in India could have been targeted for hacking using Pegasus software/spyware.

The government has, however, dismissed allegations of any kind of surveillance on its part on specific people, saying it "has no concrete basis or truth associated with it whatsoever"

Congress demands JPC probe

Slamming the Centre over the Pegasus snooping issue, Congress leader P Chidambaram on Sunday said the government should either call for a joint parliamentary committee probe into the Pegasus snooping allegations or request the Supreme Court to appoint a sitting judge to investigate the matter, and demanded that Prime Minister Narendra Modi make a statement in Parliament clarifying whether there had been surveillance or not.

The former home minister said he was not sure that one can go to the extent of saying that the entire electoral mandate of 2019 was vitiated by the "unlawful snooping" but added that it may have "helped" the BJP to score that victory which has been "tainted" by the allegations.

Asked about the Opposition's demand of a Supreme Court-monitored probe and whether the top court should take it up suo motu, Chidambaram said he would not want to comment on what the court may or may not do, but pointed out that there is already a public interest litigation filed by one or two persons, separately, asking it to take suo motu cognisance of the Pegasus revelations.

"Be that as it may, the government should request either Parliament to constitute a JPC or the government should request the Supreme Court to spare an honourable judge to conduct the investigation," he said.

Asked about Home Minister Amit Shah's assertion that the allegations were aimed at humiliating India at the world stage, Chidambaram said the home minister chose his words very carefully and did not deny that there was surveillance.

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