About two dozen journalists, academics, lawyers and human rights activists living in the country are said to have been spied upon by the Modi government through WhatsApp. The surveillance happened with the use of the Israeli spyware Pegasus, a report says.

The spying happened for a two-week period until May 2019. "Pegasus has clearly said that they provide their services only to governments. The Modi government paid them to snoop upon the journalists and activists before general elections," a commentator writes. Arvind Gunasekar says, "Same Israeli based NSO Group’s Pegasus software was used by Saudi Arabia to spy on murdered Journalist Jamal Khashoggi!"

"Modiji’s open transparent government! The Surveillance State is here: WhatsApp’s US-based Director Carl Woog reveals that an Israeli NSO group used it’s spyware Pegasus to target Indian journalists and human rights activists for 2 weeks till May 2019. What about now?" says senior Congress leader Kapil Sibal.