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New Delhi, April 28, 2026 – digital arrest The Central Government has told the Supreme Court that 9400 WhatsApp numbers associated with it have been banned. Multi-pronged action has been taken by telecom regulators, service providers, RBI, tech giants and CBI to curb the growing threat of ‘digital arrest’ scam in the country. The Central Government has told the Supreme Court that apart from banning 9,400 WhatsApp accounts involved in such crimes, many other strict measures have been taken.

Details of this action have been given by the ‘Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre’ (I4C) under the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA). According to sources, this comprehensive status report has been filed in compliance with the directions given by the Supreme Court on February 9 to stop the increasing number of digital arrest cases in the country.

A bench headed by Chief Justice Surya Kant, which took suo motu cognizance of online fraud, including digital arrest, had issued several guidelines. In which the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), Department of Telecommunications (DoT) and other departments were also asked to organize a joint meeting to prepare a framework for giving compensation in cases of digital arrest.

Attorney General R. The new status report, filed by Venkatraman, details the enforcement steps taken by tech giant WhatsApp in the last 12 weeks since January this year.

The report states, “In direct response to concerns raised by I4C, MEITY (Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology) and DoT, WhatsApp launched a structured, multi-week investigation in January 2026 with a specific focus on digital arrest scams targeting Indian users. The investigation employed a rigorous methodology: identifying telltale signs, mapping the network, conducting network-wide operations, and large-scale investigations.” “It included things like setting up an autonomous defense system.”

The report further added that, so far 9,400 accounts have been banned due to their alleged involvement in digital arrest.