NEW DELHI: Nearly 3 lakh URLs carrying unlawful or harmful content were referred to social media platforms for takedown between March and July 2026, with States accounting for about 82 per cent of the notices, officials said quoting the government data.
The Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C), under the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), separately flagged around 51,000 URLs linked to cyber fraud, critical infrastructure and stock-investment scams as agencies stepped up efforts to curb the rapid spread of illegal online content, they said.
The two-year analysis by the cyber wing of the MHA has identified several major categories of unlawful material circulating online, the officials said, adding that these include content associated with transnational financial frauds, child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and offences targeting women and children.
"The findings have prompted agencies to strengthen coordination with social media and other internet intermediaries to ensure faster removal of such content," they said.
“Of the 2.98 lakh URLs referred for removal during the four months, nearly 2.44 lakh were sent by State authorities. The remaining referrals included those made by the I4C, particularly in cases involving cybercrime, infrastructure-related threats and stock-investment frauds,” a senior official said, adding that Uniform Resource Locator (URL) is the web address used to locate an online resource such as a webpage, file or image.
The government has also moved to significantly reduce the time available for intermediaries to act on unlawful content.
"Following an amendment to the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, in February 2026, the prescribed takedown period was brought down to three hours from the earlier 36 hours," the officials said.
The rules require intermediaries to maintain a grievance-redressal mechanism for complaints from users and victims.
They also provide for a three-tier grievance-redressal structure with different levels of self-regulation for publishers of news and current affairs content and curated audio-visual material.
To streamline enforcement, the MHA has developed the ‘Sahyog’ portal, which automates the process of sending notices to internet intermediaries by authorised government agencies under the Information Technology Act, 2000.
The platform brings authorised agencies and intermediaries together to facilitate quicker removal or disabling of access to information, data or communication links allegedly being used to commit unlawful acts.
At the same time, agencies have identified several cybercrime hotspots, including Mewat, Jamtara, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Chandigarh, Visakhapatnam and Guwahati.
"Seven Joint Cyber Coordination Teams (JCCTs) have been constituted in these areas to improve coordination among law-enforcement agencies of States and Union Territories," the officials said.
For financial cyber fraud, the I4C has established a Cyber Fraud Mitigation Centre (CFMC), bringing together representatives of major banks, financial intermediaries, payment aggregators, telecom service providers, IT intermediaries and law-enforcement agencies.
The centre is designed to facilitate real-time coordination and immediate intervention in suspected fraud cases.
The MHA has also urged citizens to report cybercrime through the toll-free helpline 1930 and the national cybercrime reporting mechanism. For strengthening the response to cybercrime, it has developed 'CyTrain', a Massive Open Online Course platform offering training to police and judicial officers in cybercrime investigation, digital forensics and prosecution.
More than 1.63 lakh police and judicial officers from States and Union Territories are registered on the platform, while over 1.61 lakh certificates have been issued.
Together, the measures reflect a wider government push to shorten response times, improve inter-agency coordination and disrupt both the circulation of unlawful online content and the financial networks underpinning cyber fraud.