Jet Airways founder Naresh Goyal, top PSU officials in Pegasus list

Ground Report | New Delhi: Jet Airways founder Naresh; It is now learned that many big businessmen and bureaucrats, including the founder of Jet Airways, Naresh Goyal, were also kept in the target list of Pegasus. According to a new report by The Wire, apart from Goyal, SpiceJet chairman Ajay Singh and former GAIL India chief BC Tripathi have been named in the Pegasus Project probe.

The Pegasus spyware from the Israeli company NSO Group made about 50,000 numbers in 10 countries the target of potential surveillance or espionage. There are 300 Indian phone numbers in the leaked database.

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The database has been examined by French organizations Forbidden Stories and Amnesty International. It has been learned that the numbers of journalists, activists and politicians from around the world were put in the target list of Pegasus.

Naresh Goyal, the founder of the defunct Jet Airways, was stopped from traveling from Mumbai airport in May 2019. According to the new report, Goyal's number was put in the possible surveillance list a few weeks before the incident. The Wire has confirmed that Goyal used to use the number, but it is not known whether he still has the number.

Apart from Goyal, the big name in this list is Ajay Singh, Chairman, and MD of SpiceJet. Also, the names of Vikram Kothri of Rotomac Pens and his son Rahul and former Aircel promoter C Sivasankaran were also shortlisted for possible surveillance.

A mid-level executive of the Adani Group, an executive working for the Essar Group, two people associated with Reliance Industries and Reliance ADA Group are also in the list.

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Among the bureaucrats, phone numbers of former GAIL India chief BC Tripathi, former LIC boss, and a former executive director of Gujarat Narmada Valley Fertilizer Corporation were put in the Pegasus target list.

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