India temporarily blocks Telegram app over medical exam fraud

The icon for the instant messaging Telegram app is seen on a smartphone, Tuesday, Feb. 28, 2023, in Marple Township, Pa. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

NEW DELHI -- India has temporarily blocked the Telegram messaging app, saying it was used to try to defraud candidates for a national medical entrance test, which was also hit last month by allegations of leaked papers that led millions of results to be cancelled.

The ban, which is unprecedented in India, was “in response to the organized use of the platform by cheating rackets to defraud candidates appearing for the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test 2026 re-examination scheduled on 21 June 2026,” the Ministry of Education’s National Testing Agency said on Tuesday.

It is in effect until June 22.

Last month, the Indian government cancelled the NEET undergraduate entrance exam for medical colleges after authorities said they were investigating allegations that its ​questions had been leaked.

The government said the platform was used by channels it did not name that said they were selling access to the exam paper.

Following the alleged paper leaks and the cancellation of exam results for 2.3 million students, protests erupted in various parts of India. They included demonstrations by India’s viral Cockroach ‌Janta Party demanding the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan.

Indian law allows the blocking of online sites

The restriction on Telegram was issued under a provision of India’s IT law that allows the government to block access to online sites in the “interest of sovereignty and integrity of India.”

Pavel Durov, founder of the messaging app, said the ban punishes more than 150 million ordinary Telegram users in India, “not the insiders who leaked the exam materials.”

“And the ban hasn’t stopped anything. The leaks just moved to other apps,” Durov said in a post on X.

As of 1200 GMT, the Telegram application was not functioning in India.

An activist group also criticized the ban, saying it was an infringement of free speech that would not solve the problem.

“Shutting down Telegram is a band-aid solution and is a disproportionate answer to exam fraud,” the Internet Freedom Foundation said.

It said the measure would “punish ordinary users instead of addressing the systemic source of exam leaks.”

In a statement on Tuesday, the government said it regretted the inconvenience and that the measure was a “last resort” after earlier action to remove such content from the platform had not worked.

Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea did not immediately respond to requests for comment on whether they had received and begun implementing the blocking directive.

Alphabet’s Google and Apple both received an order from the government to de-list the Telegram app from their app stores temporarily and will comply, sources with direct knowledge of the matter said.

Reporting by Munsif Vengattil, Aditya Kalra and Aftab Ahmed; Editing by Christopher Cushing, Tom Hogue and Barbara Lewis, Reuters