Damning silence: On India’s Pegasus probe
U.S. ruling gives fresh cause to reopen India’s stalled Pegasus probe
Even if there was no effective hearing or follow-up action, what cannot be forgotten is that CJI Ramana had observed in open court that the government did not cooperate with the committee’s investigation. It was conduct typical of the Modi regime, which has repeatedly demonstrated that silence, denial and obfuscation form its stock responses whenever allegations emerge. It showed no interest in probing disclosures that the phones of journalists, activists, doctors and court staff were targets of spyware. It made a strange claim that the country had such ironclad laws that illegal surveillance was not possible. It adopted the untenable position that acknowledging that its agencies possessed any particular software would jeopardise national security. All this, despite admitting in Parliament that it was aware of some users being targeted by Pegasus through WhatsApp. It did not respond to credible reports that Pegasus may have been used to plant evidence on computers to frame dissidents. In the light of a judicial decision, albeit an overseas one, that the NSO Group is liable for the use of its spyware by its clients, solely government entities, the time has come for sealed reports to be opened and deeper probes begun. The government should come clean on whether it possesses surveillance software. Otherwise, citizens will be rendered even more vulnerable to illegal surveillance.
