Israeli Ambassador said Pegasus was bought by govt: Chidambaram

New Delhi, Oct 29: After the Israeli Ambassador said that the Pegasus spyware was sold to the government, former Home Minister P. Chidambaram said that the first skeleton has tumbled out. In a tweet on Friday he said, "After the SC's wise and bold order in the Pegasus controversy, the first skeleton has tumbled out, Yesterday, Israel's Ambassador publicly stated that Pegasus spyware was sold only to governments."

"So, in India's case, the buyer was certainly the Government of India Will the Minister for Telecommunications admit that the buyer of Pegasus was the GoI? If he remains silent, the blot on his report card will remain." he added.

An Israeli Ambassador Naor Gilon on Thursday had said that the Pegasus snooping issue is India's internal matter. The NSO is a private company and it has a licence to sell its software to the government entities only, he added.

Gilon said: "This is an internal issue of India and I can't speak beyond this point. This is the only main requirement that... under the requirements, they cannot sell it to non-governmental actors".

Responding to a query if the Indian government will contact them, he said that he has no idea whether the Indian government has contacted them or not.

On Thursday, Chidambaram said that he was "perturbed" by the statement in the Supreme Court order that many persons when requested to be a member of a Committee to probe the Pegasus controversy, had "politely declined".