New Delhi: The three-member panel appointed by the Supreme Court to look into whether Israeli spyware Pegasus was used by the government to infiltrate phones of opposition party leaders, activists, and journalists has said that only two devices have been submitted for investigation so far.
The panel has given till February 8 to people to submit their phones for a scan. The deadline was earlier set at January 7. The panel put out a public notice on February 3 seeking more people to submit their devices.
The panel comprises Naveen Kumar Chaudhary, Dean of National Forensic Sciences University in Gandhinagar, Prabaharan P, Professor at Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham in Kerala, and Ashwin Anil Gumaste, Institute Chair Associate Professor at IIT Bombay.
A France-based consortium of journalists last year accessed a leaked database of 50,000 numbers who may have been targeted for surveillance by clients of NSO Group.
Speaking in Parliament on July 19, 2021, union minister Ashwini Vaishnaw countered reports suggesting the Indian government used Pegasus to hack into the phones of journalists, activists, opposition leaders, and ministers. The reports were nothing but an “attempt to malign Indian democracy and its well-established institutions,” he said then.
