TELEGRAM CEO PAVEL DUROV ACCUSES RELIANCE, WHATSAPP OF LOBBYING FOR TELEGRAM BAN IN INDIA

Wed 17 June 2026:

Telegram CEO Pavel Durov alleged that Reliance was disrupting access to Telegram through “BGP hijacking” and claimed the company may have been involved, alongside Meta-owned WhatsApp, in lobbying for the platform’s temporary ban in India, ahead of the NEET-UG 2026 re-examination.

In a post on X on Tuesday, Durov alleged that Reliance is sabotaging access to Telegram for millions of users outside India, including in the UAE, through a technique called BGP hijacking, calling the disruption deliberate since Reliance had ignored multiple reports about it.

Indian telecom Reliance is sabotaging access to Telegram for millions of users OUTSIDE India (including the UAE) via a rogue method called BGP hijacking.

The sabotage seems intentional, as Reliance has ignored multiple reports.

This may be part of a competitive war, as…

— Pavel Durov (@durov) June 16, 2026

He urged network operators globally to reject unauthorised routing announcements from Reliance’s autonomous system, AS18101, to protect users’ access.

Durov went further, tying the alleged routing interference to a broader commercial rivalry. Pointing out that Reliance is partially owned by Meta, the parent company of WhatsApp, he wrote that he would not be surprised if Reliance and WhatsApp were also behind the recent lobbying effort to ban Telegram in India, framing the episode as part of a competitive conflict between the two messaging platforms.

“The decision to ban Telegram in India looks more like a way to help WhatsApp protect its market share than a legitimate regulatory action that can fix anything,” he said.

And the fun fact is they haven’t thought that we can still use telegram with a vpn. What a dumb move by Indian government. This makes India look like a joker to the whole world. Didn’t expected this stupidity by our govt.

The paper will still leak, now on x , whatsapp, discord…

— Araya🎀 (@maybesexyy) June 16, 2026

In a separate post, Durov criticised the substance of the ban itself, arguing that it punishes more than 150 million ordinary Telegram users in India who had no role in the alleged exam paper leak that prompted the restriction.

India’s IT ministry banned Telegram for one week because some users shared leaked exam questions.

This punishes 150M+ ordinary Telegram users in India — not the insiders who leaked the exam materials.

And the ban hasn’t stopped anything. The leaks just moved to other apps. https://t.co/CzQWN4mXfb

— Pavel Durov (@durov) June 16, 2026

Durov claimed that Telegram had removed hundreds of channels involved in sharing leaked exam materials and related scams in India in recent weeks.

The Indian government barred access to Telegram until June 22 and ordered Google and Apple to delist the app from their stores in the country, as part of measures meant to stop fraud networks from circulating fake claims of a leaked NEET-UG question paper ahead of the re-examination scheduled for June 21.

A separate directive requires Telegram to disable its message-editing feature for already-posted content in India until June 30, targeting the specific mechanism fraudsters allegedly used to fabricate evidence of a leak after the exam had already taken place.

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https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VaAtNxX8fewmiFmN7N22

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Many students and social media users criticised the temporary Telegram ban, arguing that it disproportionately affected legitimate users while doing little to address the root causes of exam leaks.

One widely shared post read: “My brother’s NEET-PG notes, videos and paid study groups were all on Telegram. Telegram got banned, so now he’s stuck messaging scammers just to access content he already paid for.”

Others argued that the move punished honest aspirants rather than those responsible for the alleged leak. “To stop one leaked NEET-UG paper, you broke access for thousands of honest aspirants. The source of the leak walks free. The medium gets banned. The students get punished,” another user wrote.