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Telegram / Reuters, Yonhap News Agency

The Indian government has blocked access to the messenger app Telegram within the country until June 22, stating that the platform was utilized in an organized admissions fraud targeting medical school entrance examination candidates.

According to Reuters on June 17 (local time), India's National Testing Agency (NTA), an agency under the Ministry of Education, issued a statement on the previous day explaining the background of the block: "This measure follows the systematic utilization of Telegram by cheating organizations targeting candidates of the 2026 National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) re-examination, which will be administered on June 21." The block will remain in place until June 22.

Previously, the Indian government canceled the NEET undergraduate medical school entrance examination after investigating allegations that the exam questions had been leaked in advance, rendering the scores of 2.3 million candidates null and void. The government explained that certain channels on Telegram had operated with offers to sell the exam papers.

In its statement, the government expressed regret for the inconvenience but noted that the block was a "last resort" after earlier measures to remove the content in question from Telegram failed to yield results. Google and Apple have reportedly received government orders to temporarily remove Telegram from their respective app stores and intend to comply with the directive.

The legal basis upon which the government took the strong measure of blocking the entire messenger app is a provision in India's Information Technology (IT) Act. This provision grants the government the authority to block access to online sites under the pretext of protecting the "sovereignty and integrity of India." Reuters reported that this action of blocking an entire messenger app is unprecedented in India.

In response to the Indian government's wholesale blocking measure, Telegram founder Pavel Durov wrote a post on X (formerly Twitter) criticizing the move, stating that it "punishes more than 150 million innocent Telegram users in India rather than the insiders who leaked the exam materials." He added, "The block stopped nothing. The leaks simply moved to other apps."

Civil society groups also joined the criticism, citing an infringement on freedom of expression. The Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF) pointed out that "blocking Telegram is a temporary band-aid and an excessive response to exam fraud," stating that the measure punishes ordinary users instead of addressing the structural causes of the leak.

Protests have erupted across India since the decision to invalidate the examination scores. A youth organization known as the "Cockroach Party (CJP)" staged protests demanding the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan.

                                                                                                             Jung Lee-na