New Delhi, June 17 (IANS). Telegram Founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Pavel Durov has said that more than 15 crore users were affected by the temporary ban imposed on the messaging platform in India ahead of the re-examination of the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test-Graduate (NEET-UG) 2026.
In a post on social media platform X, Durov said India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology banned Telegram for a week after some users were allegedly sharing leaked exam questions. This affected more than 15 crore Telegram users in India.
He further said that Telegram has, in the last few weeks, removed hundreds of channels that were accused of allegedly sharing leaked material related to the exam in India and running scams related to it.
Durov also said the company is working on making the ‘Edited’ label that appears on messages more obvious, to prevent fraud and content manipulation by altering timestamps.
His comments come at a time when the Government of India has ordered a temporary ban on Telegram services till June 22 to prevent any irregularities during the NEET-UG 2026 re-examination to be held on June 21.
This re-examination is being conducted following allegations of question paper leak during the original examination held on May 3.
This ban was imposed based on the recommendations of the National Testing Agency (NTA). NTA itself conducts NEET exam for admission to medical undergraduate courses across the country.
Along with the temporary ban, authorities have also directed Telegram to shut down its message editing feature in India by June 30.
According to NTA, investigating agencies believe that this feature was misused earlier. After the examination question paper was circulated, messages were edited to create misleading evidence of question paper leak.
Following government instructions, Google and Apple have already removed Telegram from their respective app stores.
–IANS
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