Second major action in India on Bitchat, first the app was removed from GitHub and now from Apple App Store.

Apple has removed Bitchat, the Bluetooth mesh messaging app created by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, from India’s App Store. This action has been taken after a formal demand from the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY). Apple’s notice states that the app has a problem related to content considered illegal in India and it violates Apple Review Guidelines.

Dorsey, while sharing Apple’s notice on X on October 3, wrote that the Indian government has officially removed Bitchat from the App Store. According to Apple, this action has been taken under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, 2000. However, the company did not clarify which content was found illegal in the app. The TestFlight version of Bitchat is also not available in India.

There was increased attention after the July demonstrations

This action regarding Bitchat has come amid increased investigation after the demonstrations at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi in July 2026. According to the report, despite the ban on mobile internet services during these protests against the NEET exam paper leak, the protesters tried to communicate with each other and share videos through Bitchat.

During this period, app downloads increased rapidly in India. Between July 17 and 23, India’s share in Bitchat’s global downloads reached about 85 percent, whereas in the previous 30 days it was about 1 percent. On July 23, the daily active users of the app in India had reached more than 3.3 lakh.

Bitchat’s repositories were also removed from GitHub.

Earlier on July 23, the Indian Cyber ​​Crime Coordination Center (I4C) had ordered GitHub to remove three repositories related to Bitchat. This action was taken under Section 79(3)(b) of the IT Act. Officials argued that the design of the app creates major obstacles in the process of legal interception, user identification and investigation.

Bitchat is a peer-to-peer messaging app that sends messages over a Bluetooth mesh network instead of the Internet or mobile networks. There is no need to create an account or register. Noise Protocol is used for end-to-end encryption in the app and messages are stored only on the user’s device. It also has a panic mode, which allows erasing data.

Dorsey introduced Bitchat as a weekend project in July 2025. It came into limelight due to its usefulness in case of internet and mobile network shutdown, but these same features have now brought it under regulatory scrutiny. Earlier in April 2026, Bitchat was also removed from China’s App Store.