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NIA approved of submitting Phones of Bhima Koregaon Accused to Committee probing Pegasus spyware

Nishka Srinivas Veluvali

Published On: February 09, 2022 at 18:35 IST

On Tuesday, 08 February, 2022, the Special National Investigation Agency (NIA) Court permitted the NIA to submit the mobile handsets of the 7 Accused in the Bhima Koregaon Case to the Supreme Court designated Committee to Investigate the Pegasus spyware.

The 7 Accused in the Bhima Koregaon Case are Rona Wilson, Vernon Gonsalves, Vatavaran Rao, Sudha Bharadwaj, Anant Teltumbde, Hany Babu and Shoma Sen.

The mobile handsets of these Accused have been in the custody of the NIA Court, after the Agency had confiscated them.

The Accused of the Case had submitted to the Supreme Court designated Committee stating, “They had reasons to believe that their phones were compromised after having been hacked by the spyware”.

Upon observing all the submissions the Special Judge DE Kothalikar awarded the permission to surrender the mobile phones to the Committee.

The Supreme Court designated a Special Technical Committee to Investigate the Allegations with regard to the use of the Pegasus spyware against the Indian citizens.

According to the list of names leaked last year, a ‘Collaborative Investigation’ named as Pegasus Project, had contained the names of the Accused in the Bhima Koregaon Case.

In further detailed Forensic Analysis, the mobile phone of the Accused Rona Wilson was hit by the Pegasus spyware three months prior to his Arrest as per the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) in June, 2018 for his reported links to the violence that took place in Bhima Koregaon.