Spying software Pegasus targeted 100 people in India: Court documents
#News India April 12,2025
Israeli company NSO Group’s controversial spyware Pegasus was used in 2019 to target 1,223 WhatsApp users in 51 countries. Of these, 100 Indians were affected by the use of this hacking software. This is the second largest number of people who have fallen victim to Pegasus worldwide, as revealed by US court documents.
Pegasus is a spy software that can enter any mobile phone without the user’s knowledge. It can control the phone’s messages, calls, emails, location and even the camera and microphone. Israeli company NSO Group created it and claimed that this software is sold only to governments and legal investigation agencies to fight crime and terrorism. But the reality is that it was misused in many countries to spy on journalists, human rights activists, lawyers and politicians. In India too, it was used on these people.
The trial began in October 2019 and its documents revealed the layers of misuse of Pegasus worldwide. According to evidence presented in court, phones of journalists, politicians, Union ministers and social activists were targeted in India. This was not the first time Pegasus’ name made headlines in India. Earlier in 2021, a global investigation revealed that more than 300 phone numbers in India were targeted through Pegasus, including two Union ministers, three opposition leaders, a constitutional officer and several journalists.
However, NSO Group always claimed that it was not responsible for its misuse. But WhatsApp tried to prove in court that NSO Group had great control over the operations of its customers (ie those countries or its investigating agencies). For example, the customer only had to enter the phone number of the target and press the “install” button, the rest of the work was done by Pegasus and NSO’s technology itself. How gruesome is all this. Are you not forced to think about which party was in power in India in 2019? Have you forgotten the stories of misuse of all investigative agencies including ED, CBI, Income Tax.
This case has raised many questions in India even today.
Did the Government of India or its agencies buy Pegasus?
If yes, against whom was it used?
If not, who used it in India?
The answer to these questions is not yet clear.
In 2021, the Supreme Court of India formed a technical expert committee to investigate the allegations of Pegasus espionage.
But in August 2022, this committee said that it did not find any concrete evidence of the use of Pegasus in the phones examined. However, the committee also noted that the central government did not cooperate in the investigation.
In India, the matter has again brought the issue of privacy and surveillance into discussion. Journalists and social activists say that if governments use such technologies against their own citizens, it is a threat to democracy. On the other hand, some people believe that such technologies are needed to deal with terrorism and crime, provided they are used in a transparent and legal manner.
In India, where digital technology is growing rapidly. There is no strong law to prevent the misuse of software like Pegasus. Also, people here are not so aware of their digital privacy. Recently, some human rights activists were arrested in India and they were even accused of conspiring to assassinate Prime Minister Modi. In that case, journalists, lawyers, poets, writers were made accused. That case is still going on. In that case, it was alleged that spying software was inserted into the laptop of a human rights activist through malware and a fake letter was planted through it. In which all kinds of threats were given and later he was made the accused.
The Pegasus espionage scandal has forced India and the world to think in which direction it is being used. This is a warning that without strict laws and government accountability, this technology can make the government autocratic. Even though the investigation into this matter in India could not be completed, the question still remains that who will protect our privacy? This question must be asked to the Modi government that why the privacy of the people in India was put at stake like this.
This story came to light in 2019, when WhatsApp, the world’s most popular messaging app, filed a lawsuit against NSO Group in a US court. WhatsApp alleged that NSO Group took advantage of a vulnerability in its platform and installed Pegasus software on the phones of 1,223 people in 51 countries. Of these, 100 people were from India, which was the second largest figure after Mexico (456 people). WhatsApp claimed that the victims of this espionage were journalists, lawyers, politicians and human rights activists of India.
Court documents pointed to the widespread use of Pegasus in India. This software is so dangerous that it can be installed on the phone without the consent of any user. WhatsApp claimed that the NSO Group used its servers to send malware to the phone, which stole the personal information of the users. Among the 100 people who were targeted in India, many were those who play an important role in society. This disclosure is not only a matter of violation of privacy,
This raises the question whether governments are spying on their own citizens? Because the company that made Pegasus has given an affidavit that it has sold it to governments and legal investigation agencies. This means that in India either the government or the investigating agencies targeted its opponents through it at the behest of the government.
The use of Pegasus was not limited to India only. According to court documents, 456 people in Mexico, 82 in Bahrain, 69 in Morocco, 58 in Pakistan, 54 in Indonesia and 51 in Israel became its victims. This figure shows that this software was misused the most in developing countries. But it is not necessary that the government of every country targets its own citizens. In some cases, foreign governments can also spy on citizens of other countries.
The ongoing lawsuit between WhatsApp and NSO Group has reached a crucial juncture. In December 2024, the US court convicted the NSO Group of spying on WhatsApp users’ phones. Now in March 2025, a hearing in Oakland, California will decide how much damages NSO Group will have to pay to WhatsApp. This decision can be important not only for NSO Group but also to prevent misuse of spying software globally.
The Pegasus scandal has given many lessons to the tech world. First, that no digital platform is completely safe. Second, collusion between governments and private companies can pose a big threat to privacy. Third, transparency and accountability are necessary in the investigation of such cases.
