Mamata Banerjee attacks Centre over Pegasus spyware, terms I-T raids on Dainik Bhaskar 'brutal attempt to stifle democracy'

The Bengal Chief Minister took umbrage at the Income Tax raids against media group Dainik Bhaskar for alleged tax evasion, terming the act as a "brutal attempt" to stifle democracy and suppress voices that bring out the truth.

New Delhi: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday (July 22) claimed that the snooping on Supreme Court judges, journalists and political leaders among others using the Pegasus spyware, news of which broke earlier this week, was 'worse than the Watergate scandal' which broke in the US during the NIxon presidency.  Mamata likened the scandal which allegedly involved using a spyware developed by a Israeli firm to infect the mobile phones of hundreds of Indians in a bid to spy on them to the imposition of a 'super-emergency in the country'.  CM Mamata claimed that all impartial institutions have been politicised by the BJP-led government. "Pegasus is worse than Watergate scandal; it is super emergency," she told a press conference at the state secretariat here.