India, July 25 -- The Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre (I4C), under the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), has directed Microsoft-owned GitHub to remove repositories hosting Bitchat, a Bluetooth-based messaging application developed by former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey. The notice, issued on 23 July 2026, required GitHub to restrict access to the source code, Android version and related software releases within three hours.

Bitchat is an open-source tool that lets people communicate offline when regular networks are not available. The government used the Information Technology Act, 2000, and related rules to issue its directive to GitHub.

The I4C stated that Bitchat's technical architecture enables decentralised peer-to-peer messaging ov...