Hyderabad, June 16: The Union government has temporarily restricted Telegram across India until June 21 following a request from the National Testing Agency to curb alleged exam fraud linked to the NEET UG 2026 re examination.
The NTA said the move targets organised cheating networks that allegedly used Telegram groups and channels to mislead and exploit candidates appearing for the NEET UG 2026 re examination scheduled on June 21.
This is the first known instance of India imposing a temporary nationwide restriction on a messaging platform of Telegram’s scale.
According to the NTA, several Telegram groups promoted fake exam papers and collected money by falsely claiming advance access to question papers.
The agency said it acted based on inputs from state police units in Bihar, Gujarat and Rajasthan and from its own monitoring activities. The Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre under the Ministry of Home Affairs reportedly coordinated the removal of several channels, groups and bots.
Officials also identified cases where old messages were edited after examinations to create false claims of prediction accuracy.
As a result, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology directed Telegram to disable message editing until June 30.
The NTA described the restriction as limited and temporary. It stated that access would resume on June 22.
The agency also acknowledged inconvenience to users who rely on Telegram for education, professional communication and information access and expressed regret over the disruption.
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