India has temporarily blocked the Telegram app over concerns it may be used for cheating, days before a crucial medical entrance exam is set to be reheld.
Millions of students will retake the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test - Undergraduate (NEET-UG) on 21 June after the exam held in May was cancelled over allegations of a paper leak.
The National Testing Agency (NTA), which conducts the exam, welcomed the move, saying that it was taken in response to the "organised use of the platform [Telegram] by cheating rackets to defraud candidates".
But internet users and rights activists have criticised the ban, calling it a "band-aid solution" to tackle a much larger problem of exam fraud.
Telegram has not issued a statement yet. The BBC has contacted the platform for a response.
The platform was still available to users in India hours after the government's announcement, and it is not clear yet how the curb will be enforced.
But it has brought the NEET-UG exam - the gateway to joining medical colleges in India - and the recent controversy surrounding it back into the headlines.
Nearly 2.28 million candidates took the exam on 3 May at more than 5,000 centres across India. But within days, the NTA scrapped the exam after allegations of a paper leak led to widespread protests.
The case is being investigated by the Central Bureau of Investigation and more than a dozen arrests have been made so far.
The NEET cancellation and a separate controversy related to marking issues in a crucial school-leaving exam led to protests across India demanding the federal education minister's resignation.
In 2024 too, the NEET exam was rocked by allegations of paper leaks, fraud and irregularities in the awarding of grace marks after thousands of candidates received unusually high scores.
On Tuesday, NTA said that India's Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology had directed Telegram to restrict access to the app in India until 22 June, the day after the retest.
It added that the ministry had also asked the app to disable the message-editing feature until 30 June in India, saying that it had been used to "fabricate" evidence of paper leaks.
The testing agency also said that the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C) - which fights cybercrime - had taken down a "substantial number of Telegram channels, groups and bots whose names and content openly advertised their fraudulent and misleading purpose", acting on information shared by NTA and other law enforcement agencies.
The agency alleged that operators of several channels had demanded hundreds of thousands of rupees from candidates and their families in exchange for purported access to the re-examination paper, adding that "there is no such paper available outside the secured examination chain".
The NTA added that it regretted "the inconvenience" that the ban would cause for Indians "who use the Telegram platform for legitimate personal, educational, professional and informational purposes".
Though the agency's motive for blocking the app seems to be a crackdown on exam fraud, many have criticised the ban.
The Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF) - an Indian digital rights advocacy organisation - said that it lacks transparency and is unconstitutional.
"The block of Telegram is reactive and ineffective and will punish ordinary users instead of addressing the systemic source of exam leaks.
This blocking comes in the final days of NEET preparation, when thousands of students depend on Telegram for study groups, doubt-clearing, and shared resources," IFF said.
It added that banning Telegram would not put a stop to leaks occuring from within the education system, among insiders and across the printing and logistics chain.
Source: BBC
– Agencies
