New Delhi

A total of 136 persons have been identified as the victims of the Pegasus spyware by ‘The Wire’, the Indian web news portal collaborating with 16 other media organisations worldwide to focus on the persons of interest or forensically identified as targets by the clients of the Israeli NSO Group.

Those on the list include heads of state, political figures, activists, students, lawyers and journalists, among others, The Wire reaffirmed on Saturday.

The France-based media non-profit organisation Forbidden Stories had accessed a leaked database of 50,000 numbers who might have been targeted for surveillance by clients of NSO Group. Since the Israeli company says the advanced spyware is only sold to “vetted governments”, it is safe to assume these individuals were targets or potential targets of government or military agencies.