Pegasus: ‘He’s been reading everything on your phone!’ says Rahul Gandhi

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi took a dig at Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Israeli spyware ‘Pegasus’

After phone numbers of Indian ministries, opposition leaders, and journalists were uncovered on a database of targets for hacking that employed Israeli spyware ‘Pegasus’, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi took a dig at Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

“We know what he’s been reading – everything on your phone!” the leader wrote, responding to a three-day-old post in which Rahul Gandhi wondered “what you guys are reading these days.”

The revelation on the eavesdropping scandal is based on a hacked database that was shared with a number of publications across the world for a combined investigation by the Paris-based media non-profit Forbidden Stories and Amnesty International.

Forensic tests done on certain phones connected with the target numbers found obvious indications of Pegasus spyware targeting, according to The Wire, which published the findings.

Most of the names, including a sitting Supreme Court judge and two serving ministers in the Narendra Modi government, were targeted between 2018 and 2019, in the run-up to the 2019 Lok Sabha general elections, according to The Wire’s analysis of the data, but there was insufficient evidence to suggest all phones had been hacked.

According to the reports, the list contains over 300 verified Indian mobile telephone numbers including members of the legal community, business people, government officials, scientists, activists, and others.

However, the Indian government has denied involvement in spying, saying, “The claims involving government monitoring on individual people have no solid basis or truth linked with it whatsoever.”