More than 25 from valley were selected as potential targets: Pegasus in Kashmir

NEW DELHI: Besides Delhi-based Kashmiri journalists and a prominent civil society activist critical of official policy towards Jammu and Kashmir, more than 25 people from the Kashmir Valley were selected as potential targets of intrusive surveillance between 2017 and mid-2019 by an as yet unidentified government agency that is also believed to be a client of the Israeli company NSO Group, according to leaked records reviewed by The Wire.

The numbers of key separatist leaders, politicians, human rights activists, journalists and business persons from Kashmir all figure in the snoop dragnet.

Of these, The Wire was able to conduct forensic analysis on the phones of two �- separatist leader Bilal Lone and the late S.A.R. Geelani, who worked as a lecturer in Delhi University and died in 2018.

Lone's phone data was examined by Amnesty International's Security Lab. Even though this phone set was not the same as the one he used at the time his phone was potentially targeted as per the leaked database, forensic analysis revealed signs of Pegasus targeting.

Before the government of India revoked Jammu and Kashmir's special constitutional status in August 2019 and jailed hundreds of political opponents, dissidents and activists, Lone had formed a political outfit of his own, the Peoples Independent Movement, "to avoid confusion" with the Peoples Conference, which is headed by his brother Sajad Lone.

For the other potential targets in Kashmir it was not possible, for one reason or another, to conduct forensic analysis. (IANS)

Also Read: Pegasus snoopgate raises troubling questions about use of the spyware in India

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