Phone numbers that have been used by Anil Ambani and one other official of the Reliance ADA Group were added to the leaked list that was analysed by media partners of the Pegasus Project. | @AnujSrivas
@AnujSrivas In 2018, two years after largely smooth sailing, the Narendra Modi government’s decision to purchase 36 Rafale aircraft started to come under public scrutiny.
A legal challenge was mounted before the Supreme Court.
@AnujSrivas It was at this time that phone numbers that have been used by Anil Ambani and one other official of the Reliance ADA Group were added to the leaked list.
@AnujSrivas Apart from Ambani, the other company official whose numbers appear on the list include corporate communications chief Tony Jesudasan, as well as Jesudasan’s wife.
@AnujSrivas 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.
@AnujSrivas In 2018, media reports noted that Posina developed a reputation for ferociously defending the Rafale deal, to the point of apparently getting into verbal altercations with journalists on Twitter.
@AnujSrivas The confirmed targeting with Pegasus of former Indian Express associate editor Sushant Singh – who was extensively covering the Rafale controversy – and the presence of at least two government officials...
@AnujSrivas ... who at the time of being added to the list worked in the defence space, also implies a certain focus on the defence sector and perhaps the aircraft deal, which was a political hot potato at the time.
Others on the leaked database include at least two members of People’s Democratic party (PDP) chief and former chief minister of J&K Mehbooba Mufti’s family.
Hours after PM Modi acted to oust Alok Verma from his post as head of the CBI at midnight on October 23, 2018, three telephone numbers registered in his name were added to a list of possible targets for surveillance.
Until his peremptory termination despite having three months of his tenure to go, Verma had enjoyed the authority to order the surveillance of suspects – under norms prescribed by law.
Along with Verma, the personal telephone numbers of his wife, daughter and son-in-law would eventually get placed on the list too, making it a total of 8 numbers from this one family. | @svaradarajan and @AjoyAshirwad report.
The closest circle of advisors around the Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, and staff members of other Buddhist clerics were selected as targets of potential surveillance over two years. | @DevirupaM and @safimichael
@DevirupaM@safimichael The first records relate to staff of the 17th Gyalwang Karmapa, Urgyen Trinley Dorji, the third highest ranking monk in Tibetan Buddhism, who had been living outside India since early 2017.
Two political personalities from Assam, Samujjal Bhattacharjee of AASU and Anup Chetia of the pro-talks faction of ULFA are in the leaked list of potential spyware targets, along with a Manipuri writer. | @sangbarooahpish
@sangbarooahpish On July 16, 2019, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) announced the reconstitution of a ‘high level committee’ to implement Clause 6, a salient section of the Assam Accord.
Bhattacharjee's number was added on the list less than a month before this.
@sangbarooahpish The clause is designed to provide ‘constitutional safeguards” to the “Assamese people” and its importance had come to the fore in the wake of the Modi government’s stated desire to amend the Citizenship Act...
In 2018, the phone numbers of 6 senior officials from Mahyco Monsanto Biotech (India) Pvt. Lt and Monsanto India were selected as possible candidates for surveillance.
In February 2018, the then BJP govt in Maharashtra set up a special investigation team (SIT) to probe companies that were allegedly selling or releasing unapproved herbicide-tolerant (HT) transgenic cotton, or Bt cotton, seeds in the state.
In particular, the state had accused several seed companies of surreptitiously releasing the seeds in several cotton-growing districts of Maharashtra, and parts of Gujarat, Telangana and Karnataka.
BREAKING | #PegasusProject There is circumstantial evidence to believe the attempt to surveil Gagandeep Kang – today a household name because of her work on the SARS-CoV-2 virus – is linked to the Nipah virus outbreak. | @1amnerd
@1amnerd Around the same time, between April and July 2018, the name of another individual shows up as having been selected for potential surveillance.
This individual, who did not consent to being named...