MEXICO CITY — After reports this week that sophisticated government-owned surveillance software was used to spy on some of Mexico’s most prominent journalists and activists, victims and others have demanded an independent inquiry into the allegations.

The calls came in response to an article by The New York Times and to a parallel report by several Mexican and international organizations, both of which found that the Israeli-made spyware, which was sold to the Mexican government on the strict condition that it be used only against terrorists and criminal groups, was deployed against some of the government’s most outspoken critics.

The software, called Pegasus, can infiltrate a smartphone and allow spies to monitor all activity on it, including calls, texts and emails.

Nine victims of the spyware campaign have filed a criminal complaint with the Mexican attorney general’s office. They include lawyers looking into the still-unsolved disappearance of 43 students in 2014; a leader of an initiative to pass anticorruption legislation; and the journalist who uncovered a scandal involving the family of President Enrique Peña Nieto.