India restricted access to Telegram earlier this week amid an ongoing probe into alleged National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test Undergraduate (Neet-UG) paper leaks. Within hours, students preparing for the exam had shifted study material to alternative platforms or VPN-enabled access, limiting the immediate impact of the restriction on fraudulent networks already operating across services.
Prakash, a repeat Neet aspirant from Sultanpur, Uttar Pradesh, said he had already been through a disrupted exam cycle. His 3 May examination was cancelled following a confirmed paper leak involving up to 140 questions and later rescheduled to 21 June. Days before the revised date, Telegram was restricted in India.
He moved his notes to WhatsApp, his lectures have been moved to YouTube via his coaching with access to Google Drive provided to them, and he is focused on studying now.
“No matter what force, no matter what system, as long as the system does not improve, nothing will happen. The paper goes on Telegram through your system, because of the transport, ministry, that's where it leaks. Only the people inside leak the paper,” he told BW Businessworld, expressing his lack of trust in the system.
According to him, the government's order targeted the symptom while still missing on diagnosing the disease. "The biggest problem in this is that the paper gets leaked. Let's say the toppers are fine. But the average students are the one's affected the most. And middle-class students are trapped in this loop," he added.
Why Was The Ban Imposed
The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology's order under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act carried two directives. The first, delisting Telegram from Google and Apple's Indian storefronts until 22 June, was a blunt instrument. The second was more surgical: Telegram was separately directed to disable its message-editing feature in India until 30 June.
The editing feature had been specifically flagged by the NTA as a structural loophole. Telegram allows channel administrators to replace attached files within a message while the original timestamp holds, meaning a channel could retroactively insert a document and make it appear to have been shared before the exam. The NTA flagged several channels operating under names including 'PAPER LEAKED NEET', 'Re-Neet 2026' and 'Private Mafia', allegedly soliciting payments from a few thousand to several lakh rupees for purported exam material. The agency maintained that no authentic leaked papers existed outside the secured examination chain, that these channels were running fraud, not distributing genuine content.
Data from Google Trends showed a sharp spike in searches for "VPN for Telegram" immediately after the restriction came into effect on 16 June. Search interest, which had been negligible before the order, surged through the day and reached peak levels on 17 June, indicating that users were actively seeking ways to regain access rather than abandoning the platform.
The trend is significant given Telegram's scale in India. A Statista survey found that 45 per cent of Indian respondents reported using Telegram regularly, the highest among all surveyed countries. India ranked ahead of Brazil, Mexico, South Africa and Spain, underlining the platform's importance not only as a messaging service but also as a hub for educational communities, coaching groups and large-scale information sharing.
ProtonVPN reported hourly registrations from India spiking 150 per cent above normal by Thursday evening. However, Downdetector logged a sharp complaints surge for Telegram, with Delhi accounting for 42 per cent, Telangana 31 per cent, Kerala 16 per cent and Tamil Nadu 10 per cent. StatusGator recorded 1,489 user-submitted reports in the 24 hours following the order. Screenshots of Telegram running normally through VPNs were also being circulated over social media platforms.
NTA Director General Abhishek Singh acknowledged the limits himself, adding that the ban could not be completely foolproof where VPNs were used, but would help minimise the reach of fraudulent channels during the re-examination window. His advice to aspirants was to treat the NTA's official website, registered email and SMS as the only authoritative sources for exam information.
The Internet Freedom Foundation called it "an easily avoided solution."
“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,” said Pavel Durov, CEO, Telegram, over the social media platform X (formerly Twitter).
Students Bear The Cost
For aspirants, the restriction created friction in preparation rather than solving the underlying issue. Coaching material, peer discussions and updates—previously shared on telegram, had to be migrated to WhatsApp or YouTube. Students said legitimate academic ecosystems were disrupted alongside fraudulent channels.
“A lot of students use Telegram to share notes, get exam updates and run doubt-solving groups that genuinely help people. All of that gets impacted by a blanket block.This is shooting the messenger. The fraud does not disappear, it simply moves to the next platform. The action treats the symptom, not the disease,” said Prempreet Singh, Founder and CEO, SkillBytes.
That gap between who the ban was designed to target and who it actually affected is where the policy failed most visibly, he said.
“I have just heard of VPN this week," Praksh said, adding that most aspirants he know were focused on preparation rather than bypassing restrictions or navigating platform blocks.
"Some students will know how to use a VPN and carry on; many will not. So you end up penalising the less resourceful aspirant while the determined fraudster routes around it in minutes. That is an unnecessary and completely avoidable scenario," Singh said.
Priya, a second-year aspirant from Patna who asked to be identified only by her first name, had stopped expecting the system to protect her.
"Every year something goes wrong and then there is a new rule, a new ban, a new committee. We are just preparing for the exam. We are not the ones leaking the papers. But we are always the ones who face the consequences," said Priya.
How Leak Channels Operate
Telegram allows large public channels capable of reaching hundreds of thousands of subscribers without active moderation, end-to-end encryption on private chats, generous document-sharing, creating an environment where student study groups and scam networks coexisted. The message-editing loophole made it operationally useful for fabricating timelines that implied pre-exam access to papers.
"Platform-level blocking is often a short-term containment measure rather than a lasting solution. Bad actors are highly adaptive. They migrate across platforms or use VPN-enabled access," said Shreya Sharma, Founder and CEO, Rest The Case.
Telegram has challenged the government's order before the Delhi High Court, with the proportionality of the app-store delisting, as distinct from the feature-level restriction, central to its case.
Sharma said platform blocking is primarily a temporary containment mechanism that reduces visibility but does not eliminate fraud. She noted that operators simply shift to alternative platforms or encrypted services, limiting the long-term impact of such interventions on organised scam networks.
“Blocking primarily affects ordinary users while determined offenders continue operating through other routes,” she said. Sharma added that feature-level restrictions would be more effective than full-platform bans, particularly when targeting tools used to fabricate evidence or manipulate timestamps.
She also mentioned enforcement challenges, including VPN circumvention, anonymous accounts and cross-border jurisdictional delays. According to her, sustainable solutions require financial tracing, stronger KYC enforcement and tighter examination security rather than repeated platform restrictions.
Legal Challenge, BGP Dispute
Separately, Telegram founder Pavel Durov alleged the disruption extended beyond app store delisting to Border Gateway Protocol hijacking, a technique in which a network falsely announces itself as the preferred routing path to Telegram's IP addresses, redirecting traffic. He identified Autonomous System AS18101, attributing it to Reliance, and claimed the impact had reached users in the UAE.
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
The allegation contained a material error. AS18101 belongs to Reliance Communications, in insolvency since 2019 with mobile operations long wound down. Reliance Jio, the operational entity, runs under AS55836. Jio denied any involvement.
“Recent posts on X have led to speculation regarding Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited (AS55836) and a BGP route misconfiguration. We categorically clarify that Jio has not been involved in any such incident. Jio continues to operate its network in accordance with global Internet routing best practices and the highest standards of reliability, security, and transparency,” said Jio.
Durov also alleged that Reliance and WhatsApp may have lobbied for the ban as part of a "competitive war." No evidence has been produced to support the claim, and neither Reliance nor Meta has responded substantively.
Durov also alleged that Reliance and WhatsApp may have lobbied for the ban as part of a "competitive war." No evidence has been produced to support the claim, and neither Reliance nor Meta has responded substantively.
Loop That Needs Breaking
Prakash, who was also associated with discussions around the Neet-UG 2024 examination, which came under scrutiny after an unusually high number of students reportedly scored a perfect 720/720, said that repeated disruptions in the examination system continue to create uncertainty for aspirants, with some candidates facing the need to reappear due to administrative or procedural issues.
“The best thing is to correct your failure. Why are you banning Telegram? How does the paper go on Telegram? The paper goes on Telegram through your system. Only the people inside leak the paper. The loop of drop year, ban, new committee, drop year again for students will not break until the fix is aimed at the leak, not the channel it travels through,” he said.
Disclaimer: Student names have been altered to protect their identity. |
