Thou shall not play: First PUBG Mobile, now BGMI blocked in India
India Today
Both Google and Apple blocked BGMI on Thursday evening after the government asked them to do so. Google issued an official statement on the same while Apple didn’t officially say anything yet.
Battlegrounds Mobile India (BGMI) was launched in the country as an alternative to PUBG Mobile last year and now it is blocked in India. The Indian government banned PUBG Mobile and several other Chinese apps in 2020, stating security threats. Now, the government agency has asked Google and Apple to remove the BGMI game from their respective app stores. The battle royale game is no longer available for download.
Both Google and Apple blocked BGMI on Thursday evening after the government asked them to do so. Google issued an official statement on the same while Apple didn’t officially say anything yet. Google said that it removed the mobile game after the government asked them to do so.
“On receipt of the order, following established process, we have notified the affected developer and have blocked access to the app that remained available on the Play Store in India," a Google spokesperson told India Today Tech. Currently, when we click on BGMI, it shows that the app is “not available in your region”.
Krafton currently says that it doesn’t have any clue as to why BGMI has been blocked in the country. The game developer is said to be working closely with the government authorities to resolve the issue and bring BGMI back. "We are clarifying how BGMI was removed from Google Play store and the App store and will let you know once we get specific information," Krafton told India Today Tech.
While the game is no longer available for download, users who already have it installed on their phones are still able to access it. Some users have told India Today Tech that they received an update, post which they were logged out of the app.
Right now, we do not know the exact reason behind removing BGMI from the Google Play store and Apple App store, but it looks like it is due to some violation.
Just last week, an issue related to BGMI was raised in the Rajya Sabha and since then lawmakers have been discussing whether action titles have harmful effects on children. This was highlighted after a report of a Lucknow boy killing his mother for not letting him play BGMI was reported a few days ago.
