Indian politician and a member of the Indian Parliament, Rahul Gandhi’s name is among the list of people whose has been target of Israeli spyware ‘Pegasus,’ The Wire reports.
The list also includes name of poll strategist Prashant Kishor and the Centre’s new IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw.
As per The Wire report, at least two mobile phone accounts used by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi were among 300 verified Indian numbers listed as potential targets by an official Indian client of the Israeli surveillance technology vendor, NSO Group.
The report also claims that five social friends and acquaintances of Rahul Gandhi were also in the list of potential targets and also none of them “plays any role in politics or public affairs.”
On Sunday Media outlets including The Washington Post, The Guardian, The Wire and Le Monde in the ‘Pegasus Project’ revealed that Spyware Pegasus has been used to conduct surveillance on about 300 Indians, including Journalists, opposition leaders and activists.
Rahul’s phones were not among those examined to find out if they were indeed compromised as “he no longer has the handsets he used at the time that his numbers appear to have been selected for targeting – from mid-2018 to mid-2019,” The Wire Reported.
The report maintains that without forensics, “It is not possible to conclusively establish whether Pegasus was deployed against Gandhi.”
The presence of Pegasus spyware in as many as 37 instruments, 10 of which are in India has been confirmed by Amnesty International’s technical lab after drawing forensic inspection of a cross-section of phones from this list.
Rahul Gandhi told The Wire that, “he had received suspicious WhatsApp messages in the past – one of the known vectors for a spyware hack – and frequently changed numbers and instruments so as to make it “a little harder for them” to target him.”
The Wire claims that it has withheld the names of five social friends and acquaintances of Rahul Gandhi for privacy reasons.
The Wire also claims that three out five social friends and acquaintances of Rahul Gandhi have agreed to talk to The Wire.
One of them is still using the handset that they used back then.
As per reports, other than the five unnamed acquaintances, the phone numbers of Alankar Sawai and Sachin Rao, two close aides of Rahul Gandhi are also present in the list.
Sachin Rao is a member of the Congress Working Committee and Alankar Sawai works with Gandhi’s office.
As per reports Alankar Sawai and Sachin Rao no longer have the handsets they used at the time when they were targeted- mid- 2018 to mid-2019.
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