Telegram CEO Pavel Durov has alleged that Reliance Group, which Meta has a partial stake in, along with competitor WhatsApp, may have lobbied to impose a ban on the company's app in India.
He also accused Reliance of sabotaging access to Telegram for millions of users outside India, including the UAE.
In a post on X, he claimed that Reliance used a rogue method called BGP hijacking to sabotage the app.
"Indian telecom Reliance is sabotaging access to Telegram for millions of users OUTSIDE India (including the UAE) via a rogue method called BGP hijacking," he said.
"The sabotage seems intentional, as Reliance has ignored multiple reports. This may be part of a competitive war, as Reliance is partially owned by Meta, the company behind WhatsApp.
Network operators are advised to reject unauthorised BGP announcements from Reliance (AS18101) to prevent route hijacks and ensure stable Internet access for their users. Such abuse of global Internet routing is alarming. I wouldn’t be surprised if Reliance/WhatsApp were also behind the recent lobbying effort to ban Telegram in India,” he added.
A senior telecom industry source termed the allegation by Durov fake news, saying that the Durov had confused Reliance Communications with Reliance Industries.
Meta has a small stake in the digital arm of Reliance Industries Ltd RIL.
Jio, meanwhile, is operated by Reliance Communications, which is not part of RIL.
The CEO said that the IT ministry banned Telegram for one week because some users shared leaked exam questions,
He said that the government moved to punish about 150+ ordinary Telegram users in India, and not the insiders who leaked the exam paper.
He also said that the leaks have just moved to other apps
Telegram has now approached the Delhi High Court to challenge the central government's decision.
The Indian government ordered both Google and Apple to delist the Telegram app from the app stores till June 22 to prevent paper leaks ahead of the coming NEET re-examinations.
The platform was also directed to disable its message editing feature for already posted messages.
The government said the measures were necessary to protect the integrity of the re-examination scheduled for June 21.
Authorities had argued that Telegram channels were used to distribute leaked or fake question papers. Coordinate fraud and manipulate timestamps through the platform's editing feature.
