Dubai, June 16 -- Telegram CEO Pavel Durov on Tuesday criticised India's temporary restriction on the messaging platform ahead of the NEET-UG test, claiming it unfairly affects millions of users.

He claimed that India's IT ministry banned Telegram for one week because "some users shared leaked exam questions" and that "leaks have moved to other apps".

"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," he said in a post on X, reacting to the Internet Freedom Foundation press release.

The National Testing Agency wil...