Government decides to unblock four websites out of 32

The government has decided to unblock four websites after they said they will not allow pasting of jihadi propaganda and also work with the government to remove such material as per laws of the land, the government said Wednesday.

"These websites have undertaken not to allow pasting of such propaganda information on their website and also work with the government to remove such material as per the compliance with the laws of land.

"The action has been initiated to unblock the following sites -- weebly.com, vimeo.com, dailymotion.com and gist.github.com," said a statement from the communications and information technology ministry.

The government had earlier ordered to block 32 websites.

"Similar approach could be considered for other involved websites on getting assurance that law of the land would be complied with," it added.

The statement said the additional director general of police of the Anti Terrorism Squad (ATS), Mumbai, had Nov 15 requested the blocking of 32 websites which were being used for "jihadi propaganda".

It was said that "anti-national groups are using social media for mentoring Indian youths to join jihadi activities".

"These websites work on page hosting concept. Many of these websites do not require any authentication for pasting any material on them. Others upload articles, videos or photos or download the contents which helps to hide the identities."

"These websites were being used frequently for pasting, communicating such content by just changing page name even blocking the earlier one," the statement said.

An additional chief metropolitan magistrate also issued an order Nov 10 for blocking these 32 websites on an urgent basis. Blocking of the websites was ordered in compliance with the court order.

Meanwhile, BJP IT cell head Arvind Gupta tweeted: "The websites that have been blocked were based on an advisory by anti terrorism squad, and were carrying anti India content from ISIS. The sites that have removed objectionable content and/or cooperated with the on going investigations, are being unblocked."