India blocks Telegram till June 22, disables message editing over NEET retest fraud concerns

New Delhi: The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has blocked messaging platform Telegram in India until June 22 and directed it to disable its message-editing feature in the country until June 30, citing concerns over cheating and misinformation ahead of the NEET-UG 2026 re-examination.

The National Testing Agency (NTA), which announced the action, said both measures were aimed at maintaining public order and preventing organised cheating networks from exploiting the platform to defraud candidates appearing for the June 21 retest.

“The directions, issued on recommendations of NTA, are calibrated and bounded in time,” the agency said in a statement.

According to the NTA, the government issued a direction under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, 2000, restricting access to Telegram in India until June 22, covering the examination day and its immediate aftermath. A separate direction requires Telegram to disable the editing of already posted messages in India until June 30.

The agency said the editing feature had been misused to fabricate “after-the-event” evidence of question paper leaks in national examinations.

Welcoming the move, the NTA said the restrictions would help ensure a safe and secure conduct of the NEET-UG 2026 re-examination.

The Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C), under the Ministry of Home Affairs, coordinated the operational response to Telegram-based fraud targeting NEET candidates. Acting on inputs from the NTA, state law enforcement agencies, including police forces in Bihar, Gujarat and Rajasthan, and its own monitoring, I4C facilitated the takedown of several Telegram channels, groups and bots that openly advertised fraudulent services.

The NTA described the latest restrictions as a “measure of last resort”, taken only after intermediary remedies, including channel takedowns, failed to produce an adequate response at the platform level.

According to the agency, several Telegram channels operated under names such as “PAPER LEAKED NEET”, “Re-NEET 2026”, “Private Mafia” and “REE NEET MAFIAA”, demanding amounts ranging from a few thousand rupees to several lakh rupees in exchange for purported access to the re-examination question paper.

“NTA has categorically stated that no such paper exists outside the secured examination chain, and that every such promise is, without exception, a fraud designed to extort money from anxious aspirants,” the statement said.

The agency also explained how the alleged fraud worked. Channel administrators would post an innocuous message before the examination. After the exam concluded and the actual question paper became public, they would edit the earlier post to insert the real paper while retaining the original timestamp. Screenshots of these edited messages were then circulated as purported proof that the paper had been leaked before the exam.

The direction to disable message editing is intended to prevent such post-examination fabrication, the NTA said.

Acknowledging that the temporary block would affect millions of legitimate Telegram users, the agency said the restriction would end on June 22. It added that disabling message editing until June 30 would not affect users’ ability to send or receive new messages on the platform.