An Indian government investigation has found that messaging app Telegram is being widely used to disseminate child sexual abuse material and carry out financial frauds, according to a 35-page report by the Union Home Ministry’s Cybercrime Coordination Center submitted to the court.
The document contains screenshots of Telegram groups depicting fake job advertisements; Materials that demonstrated child sexual abuse and exploitation; And a pirated copy of the Bollywood movie “Dhurandhar”.
The government also stated that it was “proactively monitoring” groups on the platform, Reuters reported, citing a government report dated June 10. Reuters said that Telegram and the ministry did not respond to inquiries.
The ministry’s report was submitted as part of the government’s successful legal defense of the week-long ban on the app imposed ahead of the June 21 re-examination of the National Eligibility for Undergraduate Entrance Examination (NEET-UG) for medical admission. The retest was necessary due to a paper leak that led to the cancellation of the original test on May 3. The government cited Telegram as a means of disseminating the leaked paper.
The ban ended on June 22, although the message editing feature restriction remained in effect until June 30.
As of Tuesday morning, the app was live for some existing users but remained unlisted on Apple’s App Store until around 10 a.m., while it became available on the Google Play Store. Officials reportedly said there are no plans to extend the ban.
The matter reached the Delhi High Court, which on June 19 upheld the government’s decision to ban Telegram six days before the NEET-UG re-exam.
What the investigation report said on Telegram
The government also said that it has received more than 6.88 million complaints about Telegram as a means of cyber fraud since 2023, causing an estimated loss of about $750 million to Indian citizens. Between January and May of this year alone, there were 1,556 complaints related to the use of Telegram, according to a Home Office report.
“Cybercriminals are using Telegram to access closed groups/channels… (India) is proactively monitoring Telegram groups and channels,” the report said.
Telegram said an internal review found that illegal content represented less than 0.1% of the content on its platform, Reuters reported.
In April, Britain’s communications regulator launched a separate investigation into Telegram over evidence of child sexual abuse material being shared on the platform. Telegram has denied the allegations and since 2018 has said it has “virtually eliminated” the public spread of such material through its detection algorithms.
India ban and challenge
The IT Ministry, on the recommendations of the National Testing Agency (NTA), has issued a directive under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, 2000, restricting access to Telegram in India till June 22. The separate directive requires Telegram to disable the message editing feature for messages already posted until June 30.
The government told the court that some Telegram channels – called “Private Mafia” and “PAPER LEAKED NEET” – sold fake question papers for up to $10 lakh before re-exam also.
Channel administrators allegedly exploited the platform’s message editing feature, which changes content without updating the timestamp, to fabricate “proof” of the leaks after testing.
The government told the Delhi High Court that per-channel removals kept failing with the removed channels appearing through mirrors.
Telegram retreat
Telegram has publicly opposed the ban. “You should also close all the malls because there might be a robbery in one of them. And I close the roads because I heard someone was speeding,” the messaging platform’s official X account posted in response to Congress leader Karti Chidambaram’s criticism.
The ban “punishes over 150 million regular users of Telegram in India – not the insiders who leaked the test materials,” Telegram CEO Pavel Durov said.
India, with more than 150 million users, is the largest market for Telegram in the world.
The government said it was concerned about Telegram’s privacy features, which allow users to interact without having to reveal a phone number, making identity detection difficult – a feature not available on WhatsApp, India’s most popular chat app with more than 500 million users.
In 2024, France launched an investigation into organized crime activity on the platform. In the same year, Telegram was at the center of controversy in South Korea over faked sexually explicit images, and in Spain, its use was temporarily suspended due to copyright concerns.
