Pavel Durov reacts to Telegram ban in India, claims Reliance and WhatsApp might be behind it
Follow UsThe government has temporarily banned Telegram in India until June 22, 2026.
Telegram CEO Pavel Durov has claimed Reliance is sabotaging access to Telegram for users outside India.
The Telegram CEO also said that the ban "punishes" millions of ordinary users who had no role in the alleged exam paper leak.
The government has temporarily banned Telegram in India until June 22, 2026. The move was taken over concerns that the platform was being used to sell leaked NEET (UG) 2026 re-examination papers. Following the ban, Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov has publicly criticised the decision and made serious allegations against WhatsApp and Reliance. In a X post, Durov claimed Reliance is sabotaging access to Telegram for users outside India. According to him, the telecom operator is using a technique called BGP hijacking.
Survey“Indian telecom Reliance is sabotaging access to Telegram for millions of users OUTSIDE India (including the UAE) via a rogue method called BGP hijacking,” he posted on X. “The sabotage seems intentional, as Reliance has ignored multiple reports.”
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Indian telecom Reliance is sabotaging access to Telegram for millions of users OUTSIDE India (including the UAE) via a rogue method called BGP hijacking.
— Pavel Durov (@durov) June 16, 2026
The sabotage seems intentional, as Reliance has ignored multiple reports.
This may be part of a competitive war, as…
Durov further stated that the incident could be linked to competition in the messaging platform market. He highlighted that Reliance has investments from Meta. For those who don’t know, Meta owns the popular messaging platform WhatsApp. “I wouldn’t be surprised if Reliance/WhatsApp were also behind the recent lobbying effort to ban Telegram in India,” he wrote.
In a separate post, the Telegram CEO also said that the ban “punishes” millions of ordinary users who had no role in the alleged exam paper leak. “This punishes 150M+ ordinary Telegram users in India — not the insiders who leaked the exam materials,” he wrote in his post.
He further claimed that the restriction has failed to stop the spread of the leaked content. “The leaks just moved to other apps.”
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Why was Telegram banned in India?
Telegram has been temporarily banned in India after authorities found that cheating networks were using the platform to target candidates appearing for the NEET (UG) 2026 re-examination, scheduled for June 21. Several Telegram channels were allegedly selling the exam papers, charging candidates from a few thousand rupees to several lakhs. The ban was recommended by the National Testing Agency (NTA) and enforced by MeitY under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, 2000.
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