‘Got an Apple alert…’: Mehbooba Mufti's daughter accuses BJP of snooping

PDP president Mehbooba Mufti's daughter and media advisor, Iltija Mufti, on Wednesday, alleged that her phone is being hacked by the Pegasus spyware. She also claimed in an X post that the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is snooping on women leaders across the country.

"Got an Apple alert that my phone's been hacked by Pegasus which GOI (Government of India) has admittedly procured & weaponised to harass critics & political opponents," Iltija Mufti said in a post on X.

Mehbooba Mufti also alleged that the BJP is using Pegasus spyware to “snoop” on women leaders who do not “toe their line”. "BJP shamelessly snoops on women only because we refuse to toe their line. How low will you stoop? " she added in her social media post.

Mufti tagged the Prime Minister's Office and the Ministry of Home Affairs in her Z post and also uploaded screenshots of the iPhone text alert which read that her device was targeted by a mercenary spyware attack.

The email alert on her iPhone reads, "Apple detected that you are being targeted by a mercenary spyware attack that is trying to remotely compromise the iPhone associated with your Apple ID. This attack is likely targeting you specifically because of who you are or what you do. Although it’s never possible to achieve absolute certainty when detecting such attacks, Apple has high confidence in this warning — please take it seriously.”

In December last year, a report by Amnesty International and The Washington Post alleged that the Indian government was using the highly invasive Pegasus spyware to target high-profile journalists. The findings of the report said that the software was being used to attack Indian journalists by accessing their messages, and photos, tracking locations and eavesdropping on their calls.

In its report, Amnesty said that its security lab recovered evidence from the phone of a high-profile journalist in India which showed that a zero-click exploit designed to covertly install Pegasus was sent to his phone.

In 2021, the Indian government, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, denied conducting "illegal surveillance" on any journalists or political leaders. However, New Delhi did not issue a response to the report published by Amnesty.

The Pegasus spyware was developed by Israeli cyber-intelligence firm, NSO Group, and can be remotely installed on any device running on iOS or Android.