Pegasus saga: NCP fears foreign powers may be snooping on India
Darpan News Desk IANS, 10 Aug, 2021 11:39 AM
Mumbai, Aug 10 (IANS) Throwing a new dimension to the ongoing Pegasus spyware phone-tapping controversy, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) expressed deep apprehensions that some 'foreign powers' may be snooping on the country, here on Tuesday.
Terming it as "a very serious matter", NCP National Spokesperson and Minorities Affairs Minister Nawab Malik in Maharashtra said that the Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled Centre must issue a proper clarification in Parliament.
"The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has said that it has nothing to do with the Pegasus matter. The Centre must make a proper statement in Parliament through some senior minister to the effect that the government has no links with the NSO Group Technologies," Malik urged.
He said that if the Centre's claim was indeed true, then it becomes even more serious as it could point to some foreign powers snooping on the country and its top institutions and individuals.
"The phones of several opposition leaders, Supreme Court judges, Election Commission of India, lawyers, journalists, industrialists have been tapped, but the MoD claims it has no links with Pegasus. Then who is responsible for this," Malik asked.
In view of this, the NCP leader said it was imperative for the Centre to immediately order a probe into the matter to reveal the truth, as the Congress demanded a statement by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the issue.
Malik's comments came a day after the Minister of State for Defence Ajay Bhatt informed the Rajya Sabha that the MoD has not had any transactions with the NSO Group Technologies of Israel, as Parliament deadlock continues with the opposition firm on a debate in the house.
Indian cricket team captain Virat Kohli found himself in a spot on Friday after a video on social media during the launch of his app saw him criticising a fan who said he preferred watching English and Australian batsmen instead of Indians.
An unidentified man allegedly set fire to his motorcycle after a policeman asked him to show documents of the vehicle, the police said. The incident took place on Tuesday afternoon near DSD College on New Railway Road.
Donning black dresses and carrying placards, the teachers took out protest marches in Bathinda, Patiala, Ludhiana, Gurdaspur, Hoshiarpur, Amritsar, Mohali, Faridkot and Jalandhar.
Tej Pratap Yadav had met his father for a couple of hours at the Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences hospital in Ranchi, where the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) supremo is lodged in custody in connection with a fodder scam case
The incident took place early on Tuesday when a woman security personnel of the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) detected some suspicious items in the shoe of one of the women, who was identified as Karishma Thakur.
Mesmerised by the exquisite beauty of the monument of love, the Taj Mahal, South Korean First Lady Kim Jung Sook said she would return with her husband.
