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

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. The agency 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 leaders – Bilal Lone and the late S.A.R. Geelani. Geelani worked as a lecturer in Delhi University and died in 2018.