Lagatar24 Desk
New Delhi, Oct 31: Union IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Tuesday that those who cannot see the country’s progress are engaging in destructive politics, in response to opposition leaders’ claims that they have received a warning from Apple about “state-sponsored attackers” possibly aiming for their iPhones and other devices.
These warnings, according to the Union Minister for Electronics and Information Technology, have been issued to people in 150 nations.
“From the mail sent from Apple, it can be understood that they have no clear information, they have sent alerts on the basis of an estimate. This is vague. Apple has released a clarification that the allegations by compulsive critics are not true. Such advisories have been sent to people in 150 countries. The people who cannot see the growth of the country are doing destructive politics,” Vaishnaw stated during a press briefing.
The minister also stated that certain persistent critics are attempting to disseminate a falsehood.
“Whenever these compulsive critics do not have any major issue, the only thing they say is surveillance. They tried this a few years back as well, we conducted a proper investigation, and the matter was supervised by the judiciary also but nothing came out of that including Priyanka Gandhi Vadra who said that her two children’s phones were hacked but nothing of that sort happened. This is a falsehood that some compulsive critics are trying to spread,” he said.
Earlier in the day, a number of opposition politicians from various political parties, including Asaduddin Owaisi, Raghav Chadha, Priyanka Chaturvedi, and Shashi Tharoor, claimed that their Apple devices had been hacked.
The leaders shared what they claim to be screenshots of the warnings they received on their Apple devices.
In the meantime, Rahul Gandhi criticized the Modi government for the ‘Apple warning message’ and alleged that it was attempting to distract the public from genuine concerns.
The Congress leader added that several individuals in his office have received this message, alluding to the opposition MPs’ claims of hacking.
“KC Venugopal, Supriya, Pawan Khera, Sitaram Yechury, Akhilesh Yadav, and Priyanka Chaturvedi have got it too. They (BJP) are trying to distract the attention of the youth,” Rahul Gandhi stated.
He stated that the government “can do as much tapping of his device as it wants” and that he is not afraid.
“Very few people are fighting against this but we are not scared. You can do as much (phone) tapping as you want, I don’t care. If you want to take my phone, I will give it to you,” he said.