Telegram CEO Pavel Durov is publicly making serious accusations against Reliance, alleging the telecom giant disrupted Telegram access beyond India's borders through Border Gateway Protocol (BGP), a move that may affect its global connectivity. He also added that the move may also benefit its rival WhatsApp.

“Indian telecom Reliance is sabotaging access to Telegram for millions of users OUTSIDE India (including the UAE) via a rogue method called BGP hijacking,” Durov said in the post.

“The sabotage seems intentional,” he added. The allegation comes amid the Telegram ban until June 22, 2026, in India over alleged paper leak channels linked to the NEET-UG exam. While the ban is temporary, it is said to affect millions of its users in the country.

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In addition to accusing Reliance, Durov also hinted at a competitive angle, pointing at the telecom giant’s relationship with Meta, which owns WhatsApp, Facebook, and Instagram. "This may be part of a competitive war, as Reliance is partially owned by Meta — the company behind WhatsApp," Durov said.

What is BGP hijacking?

As mentioned above, BGP stands for Border Gateway Protocol, which acts as a GPS for the internet that connects networks to find the best path to reach a destination, such as Telegram’s servers. This way, whenever you send a Telegram message, download a file, or connect to Telegram, BGP helps guide that data through the right networks.

However, if the network falsely tells the internet, “I am the best route to reach this destination,” other networks may start sending traffic through that incorrect path. This can cause the network to take a longer route, may not reach the intended destination, or could be dropped completely; this is described as BGP hijacking.

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In addition, users may also face failure in connection, outages, or the services may remain completely down. 

Durov said, “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 also urged network operators to reject unauthorised BGP announcements from Reliance (AS18101) to prevent route hijacks and ensure stable Internet access for their users.”

As of now, Reliance has not shared a public statement regarding the allegations, and there has been no independent confirmation of the claims made by Durov.