A senior Enforcement Directorate official who has handled several key cases was also reportedly among the persons of interest that featured in the leaked Pegasus database. The phone numbers of two former top Border Security Force officials, a retired senior official from India's external spy agency Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), and two Indian Army officers who dissented against the government in regards to service-related matters were marked as probable targets for surveillance by an Indian client of NSO Group's Pegasus spyware, a report by The Wire said. Why does it matter? These reports by an international consortium of media organisations that have been revealing identities of victims affected by Pegasus, and of those who were potential targets of the spyware, have major implications on the state of surveillance and privacy in the country. While earlier reports of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and Karnataka politicians being included in the list had suggested that these potential deployments may have a political motive, this report indicates that even defence and intelligence personnel were not exempted from possible surveillance using Pegasus. The Wire's findings reveal: Former BSF chief KK Sharma: His number was added to a list of numbers marked as probable targets for surveillance in 2018. The Wire correlated the timing of the inclusion of his number in the list with a meeting organised by an RSS affiliate group that the official had attended in uniform in Kolkata. Sharma had shared the stage with several BJP politicians and NGOs associated with RSS. The ruling…
