Shameful attack, says Amarinder on Pegasus spyware scandal
Darpan News Desk IANS, 19 Jul, 2021 10:42 AM
Chandigarh, July 19 (IANS) Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Monday condemned the alleged hacking of private phones of top political leaders, journalists, businessmen, scientists, constitutional authorities and others as a "shameful attack not just on individual privacy but also on national security" by the BJP-led government at the Centre.
As the Pegasus spyware scandal unravelled within and outside Parliament, he termed it a "shocking assault" on India's democratic polity by the Union government, which had compromised the national security with "this blatantly disgraceful act".
The Chief Minister said that with such snooping, which simply could not have been undertaken by the Israeli company without the Central government's go-ahead, the NDA government had put sensitive information into the hands of various global agencies, governments and organisations with the potential to misuse it against the country.
"This is not only an attack on individual freedom but also on the security of our nation," he said, urging the Supreme Court to take suo motu cognisance of the matter and take action against the NDA government.
"The Central government cannot get away with this. They have committed a horrendous sin, and they have to be made to pay for it," said Amarinder Singh, quipping that "nobody has the right to intrude into the lives of its people, leave alone enter their bedrooms, as this government has done".
Terming the developments as part of a pattern of the BJP-led government to "destroy all democratic institutions and stifle the voice of the opposition", he lashed out at the Centre "for the reprehensible act, which has set a new low in India's democratic history".
"No government in any part of the world has ever put the security and safety of its own institutions and people at stake in this manner before," said Amarinder Singh.
The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) on Friday condemned the Congress government in Punjab for allegedly discriminating against teachers and forcing them to come to the streets, and asked state Education Minister Vijay Inder Singla not to behave in an 'arrogant' and 'dictatorial' manner and resolve the grievances of government school teachers immediately.
Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president Sukhbir Badal on Thursday demanded a high court monitored probe into the manner in which the Congress government in Punjab was playing with the people's lives by creating an artificial shortage of vaccines by selling vaccine doses at a hefty profit to private hospitals.
The electronic conversation took place as US President Joe Biden announced on Thursday that India will receive Covid vaccines directly from the US stockpile, the White House said.
The Chief of Army Staff (COAS), General M.M. Naravane, reached Kashmir on Wednesday on a two-day visit to review the prevailing security situation in the Union Territory (UT), the army said in a statement.
"There have been several unfounded media reports that have peddled misinformation among the masses regarding this exercise of national importance," a ministry statement said, adding that the total number of Covid vaccine doses administered in the country so far stand at 21,85,46,667.
The Congress said that it was "appropriate for our initial statement to note that the intrusion by Israeli forces into the Holy Al Aqsa mosque during Ramzan prayers had ruptured the delicate peace in the region".
