Pakistan asks UN to probe India's use of Pegasus spyware

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Friday called on the relevant UN bodies to thoroughly investigate India’s use of Israeli spyware – Pegasus against Prime Minister Imran Khan and others.

In a statement, Foreign Office Spokesperson Zahid Hafeez said: “We have noted with serious concern recent international media reports exposing Indian government’s organized spying operations against its own citizens, foreigners as well as Prime Minister Imran Khan, using an Israeli origin spyware.”

Condemning India’s state-sponsored, continuing and widespread surveillance and spying operations the spokesperson said, “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 and peddle disinformation against Pakistan.”

The spokesperson further said 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.

“We are closely following these revelations and will bring the Indian abuses to the attention of appropriate global platforms,” read the statement released by the foreign office.

“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.

It is pertinent to mention here that the mobile phones of at least two dozen Pakistani senior defence and intelligence officials were allegedly targeted with technology owned by the Israeli spyware company NSO Group.

The alleged breach of privacy was discovered during an analysis of 1,400 people whose phones were the focus of hacking attempts in a two-week period earlier this year, the report says quoting sources familiar with the matter who wished not to be named.

Prime Minister Imran Khan and Indian National Congress leader Rahul Gandhi were selected as potential targets of the Israeli-made Pegasus spyware program by clients of the NSO Group cyberespionage firm, according to an investigation by 17 media organizations published on July 18.