New Delhi: Some Kashmiri journalists from Delhi and more than 25 people from the Kashmir Valley were selected between 2017 and mid-2019 as potential targets for surveillance by an unnamed government agency, also believed to be a client of the Israeli company. NSO Group, The Wire reported on Friday.
Leaked list analyzed by media partners Pegasus Project The report said the consortium reporting on the issue includes a number of prominent separatist leaders, politicians, human rights activists, journalists and businessmen from Kashmir.
The Wire said it was able to conduct forensic analysis on the phones of two separatist leaders, Bilal Lone and the late SAR Geelani, who worked as lecturers at Delhi University and died in 2018.
The report states that Lone’s phone data was examined by Amnesty International’s Security Lab and that even though the phone set was not the same type at the time his phone was potentially targeted according to the leaked database, Forensic analysis revealed signs of Pegasus targeting. .
The signs appear in 2019, and are likely the result of a process initiated by an India-based customer NSO group, it said.
The Wire, citing forensic analysis, said Gilani’s phone showed clear signs of Pegasus spyware activity between February 2018 and January 2019.
Israeli group NSO insisted that the leaked database accessed by French non-profit media organization Forbidden Stories had nothing to do with it or its software Pegasus, which is being used by “investigated governments”.
The Wire said the leaked database includes at least two members of the family of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) chief and former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mehbooba Mufti.
The Wire said that he was selected as a possible target of surveillance when Mufti was the then chief minister of the state and was in alliance with the BJP.
Mufti’s family members were selected for possible oversight as the BJP pulled out of the alliance in June 2018, months before the government fell.
Tariq Bukhari, brother of Jammu and Kashmir Apni Party President Altaf Bukhari, is also on the list, which has at least four members of the family of Kashmiri separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani, The Wire said.
According to the report, the leak also suggests that the current head of the Hurriyat Conference, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, was a possible target of surveillance between 2017 and 2019.
Meanwhile, more than 200 concerned citizens supported calls for “repressive surveillance” and an end to ties with “apartheid Israel”.
“While we ask the Indian government to come clean on the findings of this investigation, we must work towards a broader global coalition that challenges such surveillance and the collusion of governments to combat human rights violations.” have access to the technology created, as in the case of Israel,” said the statement, which was signed by members of the cultural community such as Naseeruddin Shah, Ratna Pathak Shah, Nayantara Sehgal, Mallika Sarabhai, TM Krishna and Anand Patwardhan. went.
Members of the academic community such as Nivedita Menon, Kumkum Roy, Gyan Prakash and Apoorvanand as well as activists Henry Tifagne, Harsh Mander and Fr. Fraser Mascarenhas was also among the signatories to the statement brought under the auspices of India Cultural Forum.
France-based journalism non-profit, Prohibited Stories, and international human rights advocacy group Amnesty International gained access to a massive list of 50,000 numbers believed to have been selected by 10 countries as potential targets of surveillance.
The records were then shared with a group of 16 media houses around the world – including The Wire – who collaborated to investigate the scope of this intended or actual surveillance over several months in an initiative called the Pegasus Project. Worked.
On Sunday, an international media association reported that more than 300 verified mobile phone numbers, including two ministers, more than 40 journalists, three opposition leaders and a sitting judge, could be targeted for hacking via spyware.
The government has been rejecting all the allegations of the opposition in this matter.
Leaked list analyzed by media partners Pegasus Project The report said the consortium reporting on the issue includes a number of prominent separatist leaders, politicians, human rights activists, journalists and businessmen from Kashmir.
The Wire said it was able to conduct forensic analysis on the phones of two separatist leaders, Bilal Lone and the late SAR Geelani, who worked as lecturers at Delhi University and died in 2018.
The report states that Lone’s phone data was examined by Amnesty International’s Security Lab and that even though the phone set was not the same type at the time his phone was potentially targeted according to the leaked database, Forensic analysis revealed signs of Pegasus targeting. .
The signs appear in 2019, and are likely the result of a process initiated by an India-based customer NSO group, it said.
The Wire, citing forensic analysis, said Gilani’s phone showed clear signs of Pegasus spyware activity between February 2018 and January 2019.
Israeli group NSO insisted that the leaked database accessed by French non-profit media organization Forbidden Stories had nothing to do with it or its software Pegasus, which is being used by “investigated governments”.
The Wire said the leaked database includes at least two members of the family of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) chief and former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mehbooba Mufti.
The Wire said that he was selected as a possible target of surveillance when Mufti was the then chief minister of the state and was in alliance with the BJP.
Mufti’s family members were selected for possible oversight as the BJP pulled out of the alliance in June 2018, months before the government fell.
Tariq Bukhari, brother of Jammu and Kashmir Apni Party President Altaf Bukhari, is also on the list, which has at least four members of the family of Kashmiri separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani, The Wire said.
According to the report, the leak also suggests that the current head of the Hurriyat Conference, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, was a possible target of surveillance between 2017 and 2019.
Meanwhile, more than 200 concerned citizens supported calls for “repressive surveillance” and an end to ties with “apartheid Israel”.
“While we ask the Indian government to come clean on the findings of this investigation, we must work towards a broader global coalition that challenges such surveillance and the collusion of governments to combat human rights violations.” have access to the technology created, as in the case of Israel,” said the statement, which was signed by members of the cultural community such as Naseeruddin Shah, Ratna Pathak Shah, Nayantara Sehgal, Mallika Sarabhai, TM Krishna and Anand Patwardhan. went.
Members of the academic community such as Nivedita Menon, Kumkum Roy, Gyan Prakash and Apoorvanand as well as activists Henry Tifagne, Harsh Mander and Fr. Fraser Mascarenhas was also among the signatories to the statement brought under the auspices of India Cultural Forum.
France-based journalism non-profit, Prohibited Stories, and international human rights advocacy group Amnesty International gained access to a massive list of 50,000 numbers believed to have been selected by 10 countries as potential targets of surveillance.
The records were then shared with a group of 16 media houses around the world – including The Wire – who collaborated to investigate the scope of this intended or actual surveillance over several months in an initiative called the Pegasus Project. Worked.
On Sunday, an international media association reported that more than 300 verified mobile phone numbers, including two ministers, more than 40 journalists, three opposition leaders and a sitting judge, could be targeted for hacking via spyware.
The government has been rejecting all the allegations of the opposition in this matter.
.