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.
The video, purportedly showing policeman walking with the mob that was setting vehicles and property ablaze in the Aurangabad city on Friday night, has gone viral on social media.
The Supreme Court will on Tuesday pronounce its judgment on Punjab Tourism Minister Navjot Singh Sidhu’s appeal against a Punjab and Haryana High Court verdict sentencing him to three-year imprisonment in a 1988 road rage case.
A Delhi court on Monday issued directions for conducting a lie-detector test on Congress leader Sajjan Kumar on May 30 in connection with two 1984 anti-Sikh riot cases after he gave his consent for the same.
Delhi Police on Monday filed a chargesheet in a court in Sunanda Pushkar's suicide case, accusing her husband and Congress leader Shashi Tharoor with abetment to suicide, a charge he dubbed "preposterous" and his party called "baseless".
In a case supervised by Himanshu Roy as Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) in Mumbai, two accused were sentenced to life imprisonment on the day he ended his life.
