India’s Parliament erupted in protests on Tuesday as opposition lawmakers accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government of using military-grade spyware to monitor political opponents, journalists, and activists.
Disrupted the session repeatedly as opposition MPs shouted slogans against Modi’s government, and they demanded an investigation into how the spyware, known as Pegasus, was used in India. An opposition Congress party official, Kapil Sibal, said at a news conference, “This is a national security threat.”
The protests came after a probe by a global media consortium was published on Sunday. Based on leaked targeting data, the findings provided evidence that the spyware from Israel-based NSO Group, the world’s most infamous hacker-for-hire company, was used to allegedly infiltrate devices belonging to a range of targets, including journalists, activists, and political opponents in 50 countries.
In India, the list of potential surveillance targets included senior Congress party leader Rahul Gandhi, at least 40 journalists, a veteran election strategist critical of Modi, and a top virologist, according to the investigation.
But newly appointed information technology minister Ashwani Vaishnaw dismissed the allegations on Monday, calling them “highly sensational,” “over the top,” and “an attempt to malign the Indian democracy.”
Minutes after his statement in Parliament, India’s independent The Wire website part of the media consortium revealed that his name also appeared on the list as a potential surveillance target in 2017. He was not a member of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party at that time.
India’s Home Minister Amit Shah called the investigation an attempt to “derail India’s development trajectory through their conspiracies” and said it was “timed to cause disruptions in Parliament.”