The list of phone numbers includes those of journalists critical of the regime and also a couple who sing its praises, policemen and activists imprisoned by policemen, bureaucrats and business leaders, an election commissioner who had the temerity to cross swords with the Prime Minister, a young woman who accused India’s senior-most judge of sexual harassment, a virologist and the bankrupt brother of India’s richest man.

Other phone numbers include those of the Dalai Lama’s long term envoy to India and the head of the cricket association of the state of Bihar; the head of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in India and the leader of India’s opposition party. A relatively unknown bureaucrat was briefly on the list; he’s now India’s new minister for information and technology. The personal secretary of a once powerful, now sidelined, member of India’s ruling party was on the list too.

The hundreds of Indian phone numbers feature on a database of over 50,000 from around the world that were targeted for surveillance by clients of the NSO Group, a secretive Israeli spyware maker. Prominent international targets include French President Emmanuel Macron and the South African president Cyril Ramaphosa. The database was obtained by the French journalism non-profit Forbidden Stories and shared with 17 media organizations around the world, including TheWire in India.

This week, as India celebrates its 75th year of Independence, the country continues to be rocked by a massive snooping scandal revealing an unprecedented, and potentially unlawful, assault on individual liberty and personal privacy.