FO urges UN to probe into India's 'state-sponsored spying operations'

The Foreign Office called on the relevant United Nations bodies on Friday to probe into the revelations of India using Israeli-origin spyware - Pegasus - to spy on its opposition politicians, activists and journalists as well as global leaders, including Prime Minister Imran Khan. In a statement, the FO condemned in the strongest terms India’s state-sponsored spying operations, after it emerged that a number Prime Minister Imran Khan once used was also targeted by the NSO Group and its Pegasus malware. A collaborative investigation by The Washington Post, The Guardian, Le Monde and other media outlets revealed last week that India used the Israeli origin spyware to spy on opposition politicians as well as journalists and activists critical of the Modi government. "We have noted with serious concern recent international media reports exposing Indian government’s organised spying operations against its own citizens, foreigners as well as Prime Minister Imran Khan, using an Israeli origin spyware," said Foreign Office Spokesperson Zahid Hafeez Chaudhri. Responding to media queries regarding India’s use of the Israeli spyware, the spokesperson stated that, "We condemn in strongest possible terms India’s state-sponsored, continuing and widespread surveillance and spying operations in clear breach of global norms of responsible state behaviour," he added. Chaudri stated that keeping a clandestine tab on dissenting voices is a long-standing textbook ploy of the RSS-BJP regime to commit human rights atrocities in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) and peddle disinformation against Pakistan. Read Israel, India and spyware The world, it noted, saw the true face of the so-called Indian “democracy” when the reports of EU Disinfo Lab, Indian Chronicle, surfaced earlier last year. The FO stated that was closely following these revelations and would bring Indian abuses to the attention of appropriate global platforms. On July 19, an Israeli firm, according to reports, was accused of supplying spyware to governments, was linked to hacking attempts on tens of thousands of smartphone numbers, including activists, journalists, business executives and politicians around the world, . At least one number once used by Prime Minister Imran Khan was also targeted by the NSO Group and its Pegasus malware, which is capable of switching a phone’s camera or microphone on and harvesting its data. The leak consists of more than 50,000 smartphone numbers believed to have been identified as connected to people of interest by NSO clients since 2016, the news outlets reported, although it was unclear how many devices were actually targeted or surveilled.

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