“We thought the Centre will do something to look into this phone-hacking incident… but it is sitting idle,” West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee said.
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West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday, July 26, announced that her government has formed an inquiry commission to look into the Pegasus snooping row. The committee will comprise former Supreme Court judge Justice Madan Lokur and former Chief Justice of the Calcutta High Court Justice J Bhattacharya.
The decision to form a panel, with retired judges as its members, was taken at a special cabinet meeting chaired by the chief minister during the day.
“We thought the Centre would form an inquiry commission or a court-monitored probe would be ordered to look into this phone-hacking incident. But the Centre is sitting idle… So we decided to form a commission to look into the matter,” she said at a press conference in Kolkata. The commission set up by the West Bengal government will monitor the alleged illegal hacking, monitoring, surveillance, recording of mobile phones etc, Mamata added.
“Names of people from West Bengal have figured on the Pegasus target list. The Centre is trying to snoop on everyone. The commission will find out details about this illegal hacking,” the CM added.
A massive political row erupted in the country and other parts of the globe after media reports claimed that the Pegasus spyware was used to infiltrate phones and conduct surveillance on political leaders, government officials and journalists. An international media consortium reported that over 300 verified Indian mobile phone numbers, including of two ministers, over 40 journalists, three opposition leaders besides scores of businesspersons and activists in India, could have been targeted for hacking through the Pegasus spyware of the Israeli firm NSO.
The government has been denying all Opposition allegations in the matter, and has called the reports an ‘attempt’ to malign Indian democracy. On July 19, Union IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw told the Lok Sabha that media reports on alleged snooping published a day before the start of the Monsoon Session of Parliament “cannot be a coincidence” and stressed that there is “no substance” behind the sensationalism. However, the minister did not specify whether the Indian government was using Pegasus spyware.
The decision to form a panel, with retired judges as its members, was taken at a special cabinet meeting chaired by the chief minister during the day.
“We thought the Centre would form an inquiry commission or a court-monitored probe would be ordered to look into this phone-hacking incident. But the Centre is sitting idle… So we decided to form a commission to look into the matter,” she said at a press conference in Kolkata. The commission set up by the West Bengal government will monitor the alleged illegal hacking, monitoring, surveillance, recording of mobile phones etc, Mamata added.
“Names of people from West Bengal have figured on the Pegasus target list. The Centre is trying to snoop on everyone. The commission will find out details about this illegal hacking,” the CM added.
A massive political row erupted in the country and other parts of the globe after media reports claimed that the Pegasus spyware was used to infiltrate phones and conduct surveillance on political leaders, government officials and journalists. An international media consortium reported that over 300 verified Indian mobile phone numbers, including of two ministers, over 40 journalists, three opposition leaders besides scores of businesspersons and activists in India, could have been targeted for hacking through the Pegasus spyware of the Israeli firm NSO.
The government has been denying all Opposition allegations in the matter, and has called the reports an ‘attempt’ to malign Indian democracy. On July 19, Union IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw told the Lok Sabha that media reports on alleged snooping published a day before the start of the Monsoon Session of Parliament “cannot be a coincidence” and stressed that there is “no substance” behind the sensationalism. However, the minister did not specify whether the Indian government was using Pegasus spyware.
Source: TheNewsMinute.com