ISLAMABAD – Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) suspected that Facebook-owned messaging app, WhatsApp, was involved in the illegal activities allegedly carried out by Israeli surveillance company, NSO, through its spyware Pegasus.
Recently, reports emerged that the Israeli firm supplied the spyware to authoritarian regimes to hack the mobile phones of renowned persons, including political leaders, and journalist.
The PTA authorities made the revelations during a meeting of the National Assembly Standing Committee on Defence chaired by Amjad Ali Khan.
They said that Pegasus was used for spying activities across the world, adding that the army took action timely and imposed a ban on the use of smartphones.
The officials said that encryption cannot be broken, adding that Pegasus hacks mic of mobile phones.
“We think WhatsApp helped Pegasus-developer NSO in what it did,” they said, adding that Google has a complete record of our cyber activity.
Pakistan condemns India’s spying operation against PM Imran
On July 23, Pakistan condemned in the strongest possible terms India’s state-sponsored, continuing, and widespread surveillance and spying operations in clear breach of global norms of responsible state behavior.
Foreign Office Spokesperson Zahid Hafeez Chaudhri stated this while responding to media queries regarding India’s use of Israeli spyware – Pegasus – to hack the phones and computers of journalists, judges, diplomats, government officials, rights activists, and global leaders including Prime Minister Imran Khan
“We have noted with serious concern recent international media reports exposing Indian government’s organised spying operations against its own citizens, foreigners as well as Prime Minister Imran Khan, using an Israeli origin spyware,” he said.
Keeping a clandestine tab on dissenting voices is a long-standing textbook ploy of the RSS-BJP regime to commit human rights atrocities in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) and peddle disinformation against Pakistan. The world has seen the true face of the so-called Indian “democracy” when the reports of EU Disinfo Lab, Indian Chronicle, surfaced earlier last year.
“We are closely following these revelations and will bring the Indian abuses to the attention of appropriate global platforms,” the statement read.
In view of the gravity of these reports, Pakistan has called on the relevant UN bodies to thoroughly investigate the matter, bring the facts to light, and hold the Indian perpetrators to account.
