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.
An elderly woman was allegedly thrashed and dragged out of her house by her daughter and son- in-law in Gujarat's Chhotaudepur district, police said yesterday.
Private coaching centres in Chandigarh will not be permitted to give tuitions to school-going students from 8 am to 3 pm for 60 days from July 1 in public interest, a senior official said here today.
Eliza Bansal (17) from Punjab's Sangrur district, who topped the prestigious AIIMS MBBS exam this year, wants to serve her hometown Lehragaga which faces a shortage of doctors, her family said today.
Jimmy Sandhu, an NRI who hails from Ludhiana, who was arrested from a private hospital here by a team of the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence on June 14, is a key player of an international drug racket busted recently by the DRI, Mumbai zone.
Jammu and Kashmir was pushed into a major political crisis on Tuesday after the BJP suddenly pulled out of the ruling combine with the PDP, bringing down Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti's 27-month-old government amid surging violence in the state.
