The Indian government on Wednesday banned another 118 mobile apps, including PUBG, Ludo, Baidu, among others, saying the move was in the interest of sovereignty and integrity, and security of the nation.
This comes amid fresh tensions between India and China along the LAC in Ladakh.
“… in view of the emergent nature of threats has decided to block 118 mobile apps since in view of information available they are engaged in activities which is prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, security of state and public order,” the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology said in a statement.
The apps have been banned under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act.
Tencent’s PUBG Mobile ranks among the world’s top five smartphone games with over 734 million downloads. There are close to 50 million active PUBG players in India, according to reports and the game clocks in some 13 million daily users.
In June, the government banned 59 mobile apps including Bytedance’s TikTok, Alibaba’s UC Browser and Tencent’s WeChat, also citing security concerns.