Senior journalist Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, the Wire’s founding editors MK Venu and Siddharth Varadrajan are also on the list of those targeted by Pegasus.
At least 40 journalists’ names were featured in the leaked list of 300 Indians who were the targets of snooping using Israeli spyware Pegasus. The software is sold by the Israeli firm NSO, which came into the limelight after WhatsApp sued the firm for surveillance of WhatsApp chat.
According to a report by ‘The Wire’, the numbers of those in the database include over 40 journalists, three major opposition figures, one constitutional authority, two serving ministers in the Narendra Modi government, current and former heads and officials of security organisations and scores of businesspersons.
The report says, the database of those who are likely to be the target of the Pegasus Spyware attack also contains a number of sitting Supreme Court judges. Whether he was using the number to operate WhatsApp or other encrypted messaging services couldn’t be verified.
Also Read: Pegasus Project: 40 Indian Journalists, 2 Modi Cabinet Ministers, A Supreme Court Judge Among 300 Indians Targeted By Israeli Spyware
Names of the journalists on the list include Sushant Singh, J Gopikrishnan, Shishir Gupta, Ritika Chopra, Prashant Jha, Prem Shankar Jha, Swati Chaturvedi, Rahul Singh, Muzammil Jalil, Iftikhar Geelani and Sandeep Unnithan. Independent journalists Rohini Singh and Smita Sharma also feature on the list.
Senior journalist Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, the Wire’s founding editors MK Venu and Siddharth Varadrajan are also on the list.
According to the Wire, most of these names belong to journalists in Delhi. But there are also some names from other parts of the country.
Activists In Target List
According to The Wire report, the leaked list included phone numbers belonging to eight activists, lawyers and academics arrested in the Bhima Koregaon case. These include Anand Teltumbde, Rona Wilson, Vernon Gonsalves, Shoma Sen, Sudha Bharadwaj, Arun Ferreira, Hany Babu and Gautam Navlakha, among others. A dozen more numbers belonging to close relatives, friends, lawyers and colleagues of those arrested also appear in the leaked list.
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