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Pegasus spyware: Bhima-Koregaon activists' lawyer got warning from WhatsApp

Nihalsing Rathod says he was first contacted by CitizenLab researchers, who have done work on Pegasus, and then later by WhatsApp about his phone being compromised.

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The WhatsApp messaging application is seen on a phone screen | Photo: Reuters

Sukanya Shantha | The Wire
Over the last two years, Nagpur-based human rights lawyer Nihalsing Rathod has received receiving calls on WhatsApp from unknown numbers. These calls would be made from international numbers, and would invariably turn out to be a group call.

The moment Rathod answered them, the call would disconnect. He assumed these were innocuous calls made to his number but as a safety measure, reported each of the “suspicious calls” to WhatsApp.

On October 7, 2019, Rathod, however, was contacted by a senior researcher from the Toronto University’s CitizenLab informing him that he faced  a “specific digital risk”.

“John Scott-Railton, the senior