Amid mounting international pressure to probe the widespread abuse of the Pegasus spyware, Israeli authorities inspected the offices of NSO Group near Tel Aviv, which owns the military grade cyberwar tool.
The inspection happened on Wednesday around the time Israeli Defence Minister Benny Gantz was in Paris to discuss the matter with his French counterpart, as the latter country’s President Emmanuel Macron’s mobile numbers figured in a leaked database of NSO’s possible surveillance targets.
For its part, NSO said defence ministry officials probing the complaints had ‘visited’ and not ‘raided’ its premises.
While most countries affected by Pegasus, including France and Hungary, have been pressuring Israel to come clean, it is a mystery that the Indian government does not see the surveillance of hundreds of academics, journalists, activists, politicians and victims of sexual violence, as a matter of national security.
But, pressure is mounting on the judiciary to order a probe, as over 500 individuals and groups have written to Chief Justice of India N V Ramana seeking his immediate intervention.