NAGPUR/NEW DELHI — Lawyers defending the human rights activists arrested under the controversial Bhima Koregaon case have confirmed that their phones were targeted by Pegasus, a controversial WhatsApp snooping software developed by Israeli company NSO Group.
The NSO Group has maintained that the Pegasus software is only sold to government agencies around the world.
The revelation that the Indian security agencies are spying on citizens without any warrants or oversight is significant in itself, but the use of Pegasus in the Bhima Koregaon case is particularly troubling as much of the evidence produced by the security agencies pertains to files ostensibly obtained from the computers and phones of the accused, who have been charged with waging war against the state.
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“We have consistently been saying that many of the so-called ‘letters’ obtained by the police have been planted on the hard-drives of activists,” said Nagpur-based lawyer Nihalsingh Rathod, who represents several of the accused including celebrated Dalit lawyer Surendra Gadling. “Now it is clear just how they planted these files on Mr. Gadling’s computer.”
Rathod told HuffPost India he learnt he was a target when he was contacted by a researcher from the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab on October 7 2019.
“The researcher told me that he suspected that my phone had been targeted by malware and compromised,” Rathod told HuffPost India. “The researcher didn’t tell me that the malware was sold exclusively to national governments, and so I did not suspect that the Indian government was behind the attack.”
Soon after his call with Citizen Lab, Rathod received a generic message from WhatsApp’s business account stating, “In May we stopped an attack where an advanced cyber actor exploited our video calling to install malware on user devices. There is a possibility this phone was impacted, and we want to make sure you know how to keep your mobile secure.”
The message instructed Rathod to upgrade to the latest version of Whatsapp and to keep his phone’s operating system up to date.
“I thought this was a routine malware problem, so I did not pay much attention,” Rathod said.
On October 29, Facebook — who owns Whatsapp — filed a lawsuit against the NSO Group, alleging that NSO’s Pegasus software had been used to target over 1400 Whatsapp users around the globe. Then on October 31 2019, the Indian Express reported that Indian journalists and Dalit activists were amongst those targeted.“When I read the Express article I was shocked to learn the software had only been licensed to government agencies,” Rathod said.
“Before his arrest, similar things happened to Surendra Gadling’s phone and computer. He asked me about it. I thought it was just spam.”
Rathod said he was now planning legal action against the Indian state.
“We have always maintained that the letters police claim to have found on Gadling’s computer were planted,” Rathod said. “As defenders of human rights and the constitution, we feel helpless and hopeless.”