Activist Rona Wilson, a key accused in the Bhima Koregaon case, and also accused of conspiring to assassinate Prime Minister Narendra Modi, may have been framed, as per a report by Arsenal Consulting, a Massachusetts-based digital forensics firm.

Arsenal analysed an electronic copy of activist Wilson’s laptop and arrived at the conclusion that an attacker used malware to infiltrate the laptop and place incriminating evidence on it. According to Arsenal’s report, “Rona Wilson’s computer was compromised for just over 22 months.” They also found, “The attacker responsible for compromising Mr. Wilson’s computer had extensive resources (including time) and it is obvious that their primary goals were surveillance and incriminating document delivery.”

But there was another chilling revelation, “Arsenal has connected the same attacker to a significant malware infrastructure which has been deployed over the course of approximately four years to not only attack and compromise Mr. Wilson’s computer for 22 months, but to attack his co-defendants in the Bhima Koregaon case and defendants in other high-profile cases as well.”

On an eerie note, Arsenal concedes, “This is one of the most serious cases involving evidence tampering that Arsenal has ever encountered, based on various metrics which include the vast time span between the delivery of the first and the last incriminating documents.”

The Arsenal report then goes on to explain just how the carefully planned malware attack was carried out. Wilson received an email from someone using his fellow activist Varavara Rao’s email account. This person sent Wilson the malware in a document asking him to open it. Wilson thought he was just clicking a dropbox link, but it was just a series of steps by which NetWire was installed on his computer.  

The entire report may be read here:

Related:

Bhima Koregaon case: Was evidence planted to implicate activists?

Rona Wilson moves Bombay HC, demands probe into ‘planted evidence’