india

Updated: Oct 31, 2019 22:16 IST

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Thursday slammed the Centre over the WhatsApp spyware scandal with a reference to the controversial deal to buy Rafale fighter jets.

“The Govt seeking WhatsApp’s response on who bought Pegasus to spy on Indian citizens, is like Modi asking Dassault who made money on the sale of RAFALE jets to India!” Rahul Gandhi said in a tweet.

The Congress had severely criticised the Rafale deal in the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections in April-May this year. The Congress had claimed that there was corruption in the Rafale deal and alleged that the cost of 36 Rafale aircraft finalised by the Narendra Modi government was higher than that negotiated by the previous UPA government.

Gandhi’s tweet came hours after it was reported that nearly 1,400 users, including diplomats, political dissidents, journalists and senior government officials, in India and several other countries were the target of a hacking spree.

His Congress party had earlier alleged that the Centre had been “caught snooping” and sought intervention by the Supreme Court.

“Modi Government caught snooping! Appalling but not Surprising! After all, BJP Government fought against our right to privacy, set up a multi crore Surveillance Structure until stopped by Supreme Court. SC must take immediate cognisance and issue notice to BJP government (sic),” its spokesperson Randeep Surjewala had said.

The government said on Thursday it has sought an explanation from WhatsApp after the hacking scandal.

“Government of India is concerned at the breach of privacy of citizens of India on the messaging platform Whatsapp. We have asked Whatsapp to explain the kind of breach and what it is doing to safeguard the privacy of millions of Indian citizens,” Union information technology minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said in a series of tweets.

Ravi Shankar Prasad also used the platform to slam the Congress party and sought to “gently remind” those “trying to make political capital out of it” about several incidents of snooping under the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government.

“Those trying to make political capital out of it need to be gently reminded about the bugging incident in the office of the then eminent Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee during UPA regime. Also a gentle reminder of the spying over the then Army Chief Gen. V. K. Singh,” he said.

“These are instances of breach of privacy of highly reputed individuals, for personal whims and fancies of a family,” he added.

An official at the ministry of information technology had said while speaking to HT earlier that they have asked WhatsApp for a response and sought an explanation.

The official, who didn’t want to be named, said this was a private group hacking into WhatsApp, which had its servers abroad and so was beyond the government’s purview.

News agency Press Trust of India reported that the messaging service app was asked reply by November 4.