‘2 prominent Assam leaders were on snoop list pre-CAA’

Among the mobile numbers allegedly targeted for surveillance using Pegasus spyware two belonged to prominent political figures in Assam mdash All Assam Students Unionrsquos AASU chief adviser Samujjal Bhattacharjee and Anup Chetia who is leader of the protalks faction of the banned United Liberation Front of Assam ULFA according to The WireBoth of them were targeted before the Citizenship Amendment Act was passed in December 2019 They were both against the Union governmentrsquos plan to amend the Citizenship Amendment Bill CAB meant to pave the way for Bangladeshi Hindu migrants in Assam to get Indian nationalityThe Centre on July 16 2019 appointed Bhattacharjee as a member of a lsquohighlevel committeersquo reconstituted to implement Clause 6 of the Assam Accord which reads ldquoConstitutional legislative and administrative safeguardsshall be provided to protect preserve and promote the cultural social linguistic identity and heritage of the Assamese peoplerdquo His phone number was added to the list barely a month before the Centre announced formation of the Clause Six committee According to the report the Centre took him onboard the committee because it was advised against ignoring AASU leaders Chetiarsquos phone number was targeted for snooping in late 2018 and remained on the list till the end of 2019 general polls Then the general secretary of the ULFA Progressive he had threatened to withdraw from peace talks between the ULFA and the Centre if the Centre did not scrap CABldquoA technical examination of a phonersquos data can establish whether an attempt to hack or successful compromise by the spyware took place The mere presence of a number on the list only indicates that the person was a possible candidate for surveillancerdquo The Wire wrote in the reportAlso read Pegasus spyware issue Rahul Gandhi Ashwini Vaishnaw potential targets Prashant Kishors phone hackedlsquoModi govt wants surveillance statersquoWest Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday accused the Modi government of trying to establish a ldquosurveillance staterdquo and pitched for Opposition unity to oust the ldquoauthoritarianrdquo BJP government in the Lok Sabha polls She also asked the Supreme Court to take cognisance of the snooping scandal that targeted activists politicians journalists and judges ldquoBJP wants to convert a democratic country into a surveillance state rather than a welfare staterdquo she said adding that the Centre is spending the money collected through tax on fuel and other commodities for spyinglsquoPar panel to start questioning govt officialsrsquoA parliamentary panel on IT headed by Congress leader Shashi Tharoor is likely to question top government officials including from Home Ministry next week on allegations related to phone tapping of many using Pegasus spyware sources said on Wednesday The 32member Parliamentary Standing Committee on IT headed by Tharoor which has maximum members from the BJP is scheduled to meet on July 28 The agenda of the meeting is lsquoCitizensrsquo data security and privacyrsquo according to the notification issued by Lok Sabha Secretariat The panel has summoned officials from the Ministry of Electronics IT and the Ministry of Home Affairs2019Year in December the CAA was passedThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever