“In 2009, Appin boasted to prospective customers that it was serving India’s military, its Ministry of Home Affairs, and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), an Indian agency roughly equivalent to America’s Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), emails show,” the report further said.However, Rajat Khare’s US representative, the law firm Clare Locke, has rejected any association between its client and the cyber-mercenary business, stressing that Khare “has never operated or supported, and certainly did not create, any illegal ‘hack for hire’ industry in India or anywhere else.”According to The Guardian, Satter said that he had received threats from individuals associated with the company during his investigation into Appin and Rajat Khare. One of them “alluded to potential ‘diplomatic action’ unless I abandoned my reporting,” he said.”The petitioner and his employer, Reuters, began receiving threats from individuals linked to a company called Appin, which has hacked organisations in India and abroad,” said Satter’s court petition.Reuters is not the first to be allegedly targetted by Khera for their reportage on his company. According to an investigative report by Reporters Without Borders, at least 15 media outlets investigating Appin have received legal notices and five, including The New Yorker and the Sunday Times have been subjected to legal proceedings.”The magnitude of these gag lawsuits — known as strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs) — is unprecedented,” the RWB report noted.“If it becomes known that a powerful person can use the Indian court to strike down articles all over the world, everybody will do it. So it’s a big deal […] and if they succeed, they’ll do it everywhere,” the report cited a source as saying.The Narendra Modi-led BJP government has cancelled more than 100 OCI cards since it came to power in 2014. Satter’s case against the cancellation of his citizenship card will be heard by a Delhi court on May 22.In a statement to The Guardian, Satter stressed that the Indian government’s decision to cancel his OCI was a “mistake or on a misunderstanding.”He stated that the decision had “effectively cut me off from members of my family and a country I hold in great affection and respect” and explained that he had decided to go to court after not receiving any response to his appeal to the government for more than a year.“I am confident that, once the integrity of my journalism is demonstrated before the Indian courts and the true and correct facts are brought to the fore, the ministry of home affairs will see fit to restore my OCI card,” he said.
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