‘Officers told me to be careful on phone..’: Rahul Gandhi on Pegasus row, BJP calls him ’serial offender’

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has once again raked up the Pegasus snooping issue, saying that a large number of politicians including him had the Israeli spyware software on their phones. He made these remarks during a lecture at Cambridge University.

“A large number of political leaders have Pegasus on their phone. I myself had Pegasus on my phone. I've been called by Intelligence officers who say please be careful of what you say on the phone as we are recording the stuff,” the former Congress chief said.

He further stated, “So there is a constant pressure that we feel. Cases are registered against the Opposition. I've got a number of criminal liable cases registered against me for the things which shouldn't be under criminal cases.”

“As Opposition, it is very difficult to communicate with people when you have this type of an assault on media and on the democratic architecture,” he added.

Responding to these remarks, Union Minister Anurag Thakur said that pegasus is in his mind. “He (Rahul Gandhi) is again doing this work of hue & cry on foreign soil.”

“The entitled dynast is a serial offender - his hatred for one person transcends into hatred for the country time and again,” BJP national spokesperson, Shehzad Jai Hind tweeted. 

Last year, the Supreme Court-appointed committee, set up to look into the allegations of the government allegedly using Pegasus for snooping, had concluded that the spyware was not found in the 29 mobile phones examined by it, but the malware was found in five mobile phones.

Several pleas were filed before the top court on snooping row by senior journalists N Ram, and Sashi Kumar, Rajya Sabha MP John Brittas of Communist Marxist Party of India (Marxist) and advocate ML Sharma, former Union minister Yashwant Sinha, RSS ideologue KN Govindacharya.

Journalist Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, SNM Abdi, Prem Shankar Jha, Rupesh Kumar Singh, and Ipsa Shatakshi, who are reported to be on the potential list of snoop targets of Pegasus spyware, had also approached the top court along with The Editors Guild of India (EGI) among others.

An international media consortium had reported that over 300 verified Indian mobile phone numbers were on the list of potential targets for surveillance using the Pegasus spyware.

Pegasus is spyware developed by the Israeli cyber-arms company NSO Group that allows operators to stealthily invade a target's mobile device, giving them access to contacts, messages, and movement history. NSO has been connected to a number of scandals resulting from alleged misuse by customers of its flagship Pegasus phone surveillance software.

(With ANI inputs)