Pakistan has strongly condemned India’s use of Israeli spyware – Pegasus, to hack the phones and computers of journalists, judges, diplomats, government officials, rights activists, and global leaders including PM Imran Khan.
In a statement, Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) has strongly condemned India’s state-sponsored, continuing and widespread surveillance and spying operations in clear breach of global norms of responsible state behavior.
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. The world has seen the true face of the so-called Indian ‘democracy’ when the reports of EU Disinfo Lab, Indian Chronicle, surfaced earlier last year, noted MoFA.
The ministry has reassured that its closely following these revelations and will bring the Indian abuses to the attention of appropriate global platforms.
In view of the gravity of these reports, we call on the relevant UN bodies to thoroughly investigate the matter, bring the facts to light, and hold the Indian perpetrators to account, it added.
Kashmiri Leaders Targeted
Meanwhile, India has reportedly also used Israeli origin Pegasus spyware to target more than 25 Kashmiri hurriyat leaders including late Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Mehbooba Mufti and others.
The Kashmiri leaders were targeted with spyware between 2017 and 2019.
The Wire – an Indian nonprofit news and opinion website, has managed to conduct forensic analysis on the phones of two – Hurriyat leader Bilal Lone and the late Syed Ali Shah Geelani.
Geelani’s phone showed clear signs of Pegasus spyware activity between February 2018 and January 2019, forensic analysis showed, according to the publication’s report. The days and months in which the infection was detected on his phone match with his appearance in the leaked data.
Furthermore, family members of Mehmooba Mufti – People’s Democratic Party (PDP) chief and former chief minister were also the targeted by illegal surveillance.
Read More: India used Israeli spyware to target PM Imran Khan
Separately, at least four members of Kashmir’s most influential leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani’s family – including his son-in-law, journalist Iftikhar Gilani and his son, scientist Syed Naseem Geelani – were of consistent interest to the Indian client of the NSO group between 2017 and 2019.
J&K Apni Party president Altaf Bukhari’s brother Tariq Bukhari also makes an appearance in the list and was of considerable interest to the agency which added his name between 2017 and 2019.
His brother, Tariq, who was the subject of potential surveillance, is a businessman and political leader who, in April 2019, was questioned by the National Investigation Agency in a ‘terror funding’ case. In the aftermath of the stripping of J&K’s autonomy in August 2019, he was one of the few prominent Kashmiris to back the Union government’s decision.
Waqar Bhatti, a prominent human rights activist from the Valley, was also potentially a target of surveillance.
As reported by The Guardian, The Washington Post, Le Monde and various other media publications/outlets, Israeli spyware called ‘Pegasus’ has been used to target various notable personalities, journalists, political figures and national leaders around the world.
According to The Washington Post, more than 1,000 phone numbers in India appeared on the surveillance list while hundreds were from Pakistan, including the one PM Khan once used.
