New Delhi : Intelligence agencies in India bought Pegasus from Israeli firm NSO, quotes New York Times in its report. One of the report’s authors, a Telaviv native Ronan, says the purchase was carried out by Modi government. During the course of Ronan’s interview with online portal “The Wire”, Ronan said Indian Intelligence agencies purchased the malware. However, he fell short of specifying if it was Intelligence Bureau(IB) or Research and Analysis Wing(RAW) that indulged in the purchase. The version sold to India is capable of monitoring from 5 to upto 50 phones simultaneously, said Ronan.
That Mysterious Hike In Budget Allocation
IB and RAW report to National Security Council Secretariat(NSCS) - an establishment under purview of India’s National Security Advisor, currently Anil Doval. Incidentally, both IB and RAW are outside the jurisdiction of RTI and Parliament scrutiny. In year of 2017, when Modi government was first accused of deploying Pegasus, the Budget Allocation for NSCS stood raised 10 times over reaching Rs 333 crores.
In the subsequent year 2018-19 NSCS budget allocation touched Rs 841.73 crores while in 2019-20, that figure shrank to Rs 140.92 crores. Speculation is rife that the mega hike in Budget allocation in the two years was spent shopping for Pegasus. The Central government maintains a dead silence on the issue.
Israeli spy agency, MOSSAD, played an active role in India deal, says Ronan. Top officials of both countries are involved and the Pegasus was purchased for India’s special interests, said Ronan. It is likely that cyber experts from NSO toured India to install the software, he added.
