Raipur: Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel claimed on Wednesday that the officials from Israeli cyber-weapons company Niv Shalev and Omri (NSO) Group Technologies, which manufactures the Pegasus spyware visited the state under Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) rule in 2017.
While addressing the global media consortium, Baghel said that the NSO representatives had definitely visited the state at the time when Dr. Raman Singh was the chief minister of Chhattisgarh. Baghel further added that the Chhattisgarh Government will constitute a committee to probe this case. “Raman Singh has to explain what the deal was about and whom he met”, said the chief minister.
The Congress leaders marched towards Raj Bhavan today morning and submit a memorandum to the President regarding the matter. Congress also demand a judicial investigation in this case and resignation of Union Home Minister Amit Shah.
Back in 2019, a three-member committee had been constituted to probe illegal surveillance using Pegasus spyware. Meanwhile reacting to the allegations, Dr. Singh called the allegations false and baseless.
The Pegasus spyware snooping row erupted on Sunday after it was revealed that around 50000 phone numbers including 300 belonging to Indians were a part of database leak. These phone numbers were either put on surveillance or were the potential snooping targets.