Anil Ambani, ex-CBI head Alok Verma among potential Pegasus target list: Report
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New Delhi: Industrialist Anil Ambani and former CBI chief Alok Verma were said to have been found in a list of potential targets for surveillance using controversial Israeli spyware Pegasus, as per a report by The Wire on Thursday.
The Wire report said the phone numbers of Ambani and Jesudasan and his wife were added to the list for surveillance in 2018 when the Rafale deal come under the scanner. Narendra Modi government's decision to purchase 36 Rafale aircraft came under scrutiny at that time.
Whereas the CBI chief's number appears soon after he was ousted in a midnight coup.
The midnight coup in the CBI came barely two days after Verma ordered the filing of a criminal case against Asthana, the special director in the Bureau, accusing him of corruption.
Along with Verma, the personal telephone numbers of his wife, daughter and son-in-law would eventually get placed on the list too, making it a total of 8 numbers from this one family.
The Wire report also added to the list of numbers at the same time as Verma were two other senior CBI officials, Asthana and A.K. Sharma.
The report said like the erstwhile Director, both men were added to the database about an hour after their former boss. Asthana was also removed from the CBI on the night of October 23, 2018, and is currently head of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF). Sharma was divested that night of the crucial charge he held – head of the policy division – but remained in the CBI till January 2019, when he was transferred out. He retired from government service earlier this year.
The numbers of Asthana, Sharma, Verma and his family members figure in the leaked database for a short period. By the second week of February 2019, by which time Verma had finally retired from government service, this entire cluster of persons ceased being of interest to the government agency which had added them to the list.