India blocks Telegram until June 22 to curb NEET exam fraud, disables message editing through June 30. The restriction targets fraudulent channels, affecting lakhs of legitimate users temporarily.
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The Indian government ordered telecom operators to block access to the Telegram messaging app through June 22. The move targets fraudulent channels that claimed to sell leaked question papers for the NEET-UG re-examination, according to a statement from the National Testing Agency (NTA).
MeitY also directed Telegram to disable its message-editing feature for users in India through June 30. The editing tool had been used to fabricate post-exam “paper leak” evidence, the NTA said. Channel administrators would edit an older, innocuous message to insert the actual question paper after the exam and circulate the chat as proof of a pre-exam leak.
NTA expressed gratitude to the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology for what it called “this timely action.” The agency said the measures will help it conduct safe and secure examinations on June 21.
The Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C) served as the principal coordinating agency. Acting on inputs from the NTA and state law-enforcement agencies including police in Bihar, Gujarat and Rajasthan, I4C had already taken down a substantial number of Telegram channels, groups and bots. The channels operated under names like “PAPER LEAKED NEET,” “Re-NEET 2026,” and “Private Mafia,” demanding sums ranging from a few thousand to several lakhs of rupees from candidates and families.
The government described the platform-level block as a measure of last resort. It said intermediate remedies, including the takedown actions coordinated by I4C, had not produced the response needed to protect candidates ahead of the exam. The calibration – a narrow access restriction confined to the examination window, plus a feature-specific compliance direction for the post-exam period – reflects an effort to address the public order concern with minimum restriction, the NTA added.
The NTA acknowledged that the access restriction affects lakhs of citizens who use Telegram for legitimate purposes. It said it sincerely regretted the inconvenience. The block is set to end on June 22, the day after the examination. The editing-function disable remains in force through June 30 but does not affect ordinary use of the platform for sending or receiving new messages, the agency said.
The examination is scheduled for June 21. The block lifts the following day.
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