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Telegram CEO Pavel Durov has criticised India’s decision to temporarily block the messaging platform, calling it a mistake that unfairly affects millions of users. The government ordered the ban till June 22 over alleged circulation of NEET (UG) 2026 leaked papers. Durov said Telegram had already removed offending channels and that the ban fails to stop the real issue.

Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov has pushed back sharply against India's decision to ban the messaging platform for one week, calling it a mistake that targets the wrong people entirely. "Banning it - even temporarily - is a mistake," Durov said, adding that "Telegram is a force for good."

India's Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology invoked Section 69A of the Information Technology Act to restrict access to Telegram until June 22, in response to the National Testing Agency's (NTA) recommendation following the circulation of leaked question papers from the NEET (UG) 2026 examination on the platform. In a separate order running until June 30, Telegram has also been directed to disable its message-editing feature for all Indian users, a move critics say lacks any clear legal basis.

Durov, however, says Telegram had already been acting against the offending content. "Over the past few weeks, we removed hundreds of channels sharing leaked exam materials and related scams in India," he said. "We're also making the 'edited' label more visible to prevent backdating scams."

He argued that the blanket ban does not address the root of the problem. "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."