Delhi, 29th January 2022: Union Minister VK Singh on Saturday responded to the revelations about Pegasus spyware. He termed the New York Times as “supari media” and questioned its credibility. The US newspaper ‘New York Times’ has claimed in a piece of news that the purchase of Pegasus spyware and a missile system involved a deal of about two billion dollars in state-of-the-art weapons and intelligence equipment between India and Israel in 2017.
After this news was revealed, many opposition leaders including former Congress President Rahul Gandhi have started trying to put the government in the dock. Rahul Gandhi even accused the Modi led government of sedition.
Responding to the New York Times report, VK Singh, the Minister of State for Road Transport & Highways and Civil Aviation, tweeted: “Can you trust the NYT? It is known as ‘Supari Media’.”
There was a lot of controversy over the matter last year and opposition parties created a ruckus in Parliament accusing the government of espionage. However, the government had denied these allegations. In October last year, the Supreme Court had constituted a committee of experts to probe into the case of alleged spying of Indian citizens through Israeli spyware ‘Pegasus’.
An association of some international media groups claimed that Pegasus was used against several Indian politicians, ministers, social activists, businessmen and journalists.