From Our Bureau
NEW DELHI: The Intelligence Bureau (IB), India’s domestic intelligence agency, bought hardware in April 2017 from the Israeli company NSO Group matching equipment deployed in the Pegasus spyware, worth US $315,000 (over Rs 2 crore at that time) that was delivered by air in Delhi, marked as “For Defence and Military Use,” says a sensational report published on Thursday by The Wire, an Indian news website.
It based the news on a report released by the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), based on the import data it had collected, bolstering the claim by The New York Times that India had bought Pegasus that year as part of a major defence deal.
According to OCCRP, import data shows that on April 18, 2017, the IB received a shipment of hardware from NSO “matching the description of equipment used elsewhere to run Pegasus software”. The shipment came by air and was unloaded in Delhi. OCCRP says it accessed the data through a subscription-based trade website that has import and export details on commercial shipments worldwide.
“The consignment included Dell computer servers, Cisco network equipment, and ‘uninterruptible power supply’ batteries, which provide power in case of outages, according to a bill of lading obtained through a global trade data platform that draws on national customs documents,” the report says.
“That description — and the timing of the shipment — appeared to match the account given in January by the New York Times, which reported that Pegasus and a missile system had been ‘centerpieces’ of a major 2017 arms deal between Israel and India,” it adds.
The OCCRP report by Sharad Vyas and Jurre van Bergen, however, says: “It is not possible to say conclusively whether the imported hardware was used for Pegasus, a military-grade spyware that can be bought only by a government entity under Israel’s export law.
Though the company claims that the spyware is used to target criminal and terror gangs, the Pegasus Project – an international consortium of media organisations – demonstrated in July 2021 that it was used to target journalists, activists and opposition politicians.
OCCRP said that two intelligence officials, “a senior officer and a contractor”, confirmed on the condition of anonymity that Pegasus had been purchased by the Indian government in 2017. It said neither NSO Group nor the IB responded to questions about the shipment.
In the aftermath of the revelations made by the Pegasus Project, the Indian government neither denied nor confirmed that it had purchased Pegasus. The Supreme Court constituted a committee to probe the alleged misuse of the spyware, which said in August this year that though it had found malware on some phones it had inspected, it could not confirm if it was Pegasus. The committee also said that the government refused to cooperate with the probe.
