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- Published: July 26, 2021 22:03
New Delhi: The latest revelations from the Pegasus snooping list revealed that an aide of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, an Enforcement Directorate officer, a retired Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) officer, a junior official from the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), and two former army officers can be the possible targets for surveillance, The Wire reported on Monday.
The France-based journalism non-profit, Forbidden Stories accessed had accessed a massive list of 50,000 numbers which are believed to have been selected as potential targets of surveillance by 10 countries. The data has shown V K Jain, a former IAS officer who worked as a personal assistant to Delhi CM Kejriwal among the person of interest.
Analysed by Amnesty International the device connected to at least 67 of the numbers out of which 37 showed signs of being hacked by Pegasus. Out of these 37 numbers 10 belonged to Indian nationals.
In the latest reports by The Wire, it is being revealed that in February-March 2018, the phone number of K.K. Sharma, then head of the Border Security Force (BSF), was added to the list of potential targets.
Under the radar of being snooped, The NITI Aayog official was a senior employee of the Union government’s policy think-tank.
At least 300 people are believed to have been targeted in India including three Opposition leaders, one constitutional authority, two serving Ministers in the Narendra Modi government and several journalists.
Pegasus spyware also included numbers of Anil Ambani’s employee Tony Jesudan, and the French company Dassault Aviation’s India representative Venkata Rao Posina, The Wire said.
According to the report, the numbers of Ambani and his employee entered the list in 2018, when a legal challenge reached the Supreme Court about the Indian government’s deal with Dassault to purchase the Rafale jets.
“…The number for Dassault Aviation’s representative in India, Venkata Rao Posina, former Saab India head Inderjit Sial and Boeing India boss Pratyush Kumar all appear in the leaked database at different periods of time in 2018 and 2019…,” The Wire said.