Inthe midst of the heated Assembly elections in West Bengal earlier this year,the phone of poll strategist Prashant Kishor was broken into using NSO Group'sPegasus spyware, according to digital forensics conducted by AmnestyInternational's Security Lab and shared with The Wire.
Inaddition, the mobile number of key strategist Abhishek Banerjee, the powerfulTrinamool Congress MLA who is also the nephew of West Bengal Chief MinisterMamata Banerjee, was also selected as a potential target for surveillance by agovernment client of NSO Group, an investigation of leaked data by The Wire andits media partners on the Pegasus Project has shown.
Alsoon the list is Banerjee's personal secretary. Theirphones, along with that of a close aide to Kishor, were not immediatelyavailable for forensic investigation, making it impossible to say definitivelywhether an attempt to hack them was made.
SinceNSO insists that only "vetted governments" can purchase Pegasus, thetargetting of Kishor -- who was working as an advisor to Mamata Banerjee -- isthe first iron-clad piece of evidence that this deadly spyware is being used inIndia by an as yet unidentified agency to gather political information fromrivals of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, The Wire said.
Kishor'scurrent or one-time role as a key political advisor and strategist for a rangeof opposition parties, including the DMK in Tamil Nadu and the Congress inPunjab, besides the Trinamool, means the agency targeting him is alsointerested in gathering information about the government's political opponentsin different parts of the country.
Theforensic examination of his current phone also shows that what appear to beunsuccessful attempts to initiate a Pegasus attack were made on Kishor's phonein 2018, just months prior to the general elections of 2019. This was at a timewhen there was considerable speculation over who Kishor and his much-in-demandelection consultancy organisation, I-Pac, would be assisting in the elections.
Tracesof Pegasus on Kishor's phone were also detected in 14 days in June 2021 and 12days in July 2021, including July 13, the day when he met Congress leadersRahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi in Delhi. In fact, a hack of Kishor's phoneoccurred even on the date that The Wire met him and AI helped conduct forensicanalysis on it.