Janjivan Bureau / Kolkata : West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has accused the central government of spying on her—a development that comes as cases of surveillance of Indian journalists and rights activists through an Israeli spyware Pegasus has privacy concerns making national headlines.
Banerjee, the firebrand chief of Trinamool Congress, said on Saturday: “My phone is tapped. I know that because I have got information and have evidence with me. The government knows it because it is they who are doing it. This is happening at the behest of the central government and 2-3 state governments. I will not name the states but one is a BJP-ruled state”.
Banerjee also demanded a thorough investigation after Whatsapp admitted that Indian journalists and activists were among several people under surveillance by unnamed entities.
Banerjee has made similar claims in the past, repeatedly accusing the central government using agencies to tap her phones.
She described Whatsapp’s admission as “quite serious” and said: “Where is our freedom of speech? Which Independence are we living in now that today we cannot even talk (freely over the phone). Even if we are talking, they are getting tapped and someone is listening to them”.
“Nothing is safe now, not even WhatsApp. Earlier, we thought WhatsApp can’t be intercepted. But, now even WhatsApp has not been spared. Neither the landline phones nor mobile phones are safe. There is total espionage going on (in the country),” she told reporters.
Whatsapp sued Pegasus developer NSO Group in a US court last week. Whatsapp has admitted that the spyware exploited a vulnerability on the platform to hack into roughly 1,400 users. These users span across four continents and include diplomats, political dissidents, journalists and senior government officials.
Since then, reports have quoted several people—Indian lawyers, journalists, and activists—as saying that they got a message from Citizen Lab, an interdisciplinary laboratory under the University of Toronto, as well as Whatsapp warning them of a possible breach of their phones, and what measures they should take. Nationalist Congress Party Praful Patel was among the first politicians whose name has reportedly emerged as being among the victims.
NSO Group has defended itself saying it provides “technology to licensed government intelligence and law enforcement agencies to help them fight terrorism and serious crime” and is not “designed or licensed for use against human rights activists and journalists”.
