Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday slammed the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre over the alleged “state-sponsored” hacking of Opposition leaders’s mobile phones and that they will continue fighting and won’t be scared of this.

Addressing a press conference soon after multiple Opposition leaders claimed to have recieved Apple’s warning message, alerting them of possible “state-sponsored” attacks on their iPhones, Rahul Gandhi termed the alleged hacking “an act of criminals and thieves”.

“A number of people in my office have got this message… In Congress, KC Venugopal ji, Supriya, Pawan Khera have got it too…They (BJP) are trying to distract the attention of the youth,” the Congress leader said during his press briefing.

He further said that a very few people are fighting against the government and they will not be scared of this.

“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.

The Congress leader used the incident to target Prime Minister Narendra Modi and businessman Gautam Adani, who is often associated with the earlier by Opposition leaders, and said, “Earlier, I used to think number 1 is PM Modi, number 2 is Adani and number 3 is Amit Shah, but this wrong, number 1 is Adani, number 2 is PM Modi and number 3 is Amit Shah. We have understood the politics of India and now Adani ji cannot escape. Distraction politics is going on…”

The statement from Rahul Gandhi came hours after several Opposition leaders, including, Shashi Tharoor, Supriya Shrinate, KC Venugopal Rao and Pawan Khera of Congress, Akhilesh Yadav of Samajwadi Party and Mahua Moitra of the TMC, claimed they have received Apple’s warning that “state-sponsored” attackers may be targetting their iPhones.

They also shared the screenshots of Apple’s warning message that says “state-sponsored” attackers may be targetting your iPhone.

“Received from an Apple ID, threat-notifications@apple.com, which I have verified. Authenticity confirmed. Glad to keep underemployed officials busy at the expenses of taxpayers like me! Nothing more important to do?” Congress leader Shashi Tharoor wrote on Twitter, now renamed X.

TMC MP Mahua Moitra, who is facing a Parliamentary Ethics Committee probe into alleged “cash for query” scam, also alleged that her iPhone is being hacked. Later, Moitra said that she is official writing to Look Sabha Speaker Om Birla to summon Home Ministry officials in this regard and demanded Privilege Committee to look into the matter.

“Writing officially to @loksabhaspeaker @ombirlakota requesting he follow RajDharma to protect Opposition MPs & summon @HMOIndia officials ASAP on our phones/email being hacked. Priveleges Committee needs to take up. @AshwiniVaishnaw this is real breach you need to worry about,” she wrote on X.

According to Apple, its threat notifications are designed to alert and assist it’s users who may have been targeted by state-sponsored attackers. Apple says these individuals are targetted for who they are and what they do. The state-sponsored attackers are different from random cybercriminals as they apply exceptional resources to target select individuals and are very hard to detect and prevent.