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It is to be noted that Indian government had announced a ban on PUBG Mobile and PUBG Lite on September 2, along with several other Chinese or China linked applications. The move was hailed as a digital strike on China amid ongoing border tensions in Ladakh. PUBG was banned under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act 2009.
In a Facebook announcement, PUBG Mobile informed the fans of the termination of its services from today. " To comply with the interim order of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology dated September 2, 2020, Tencent Games will terminate all service and access for users in India to PUBG MOBILE Nordic Map: Livik and PUBG MOBILE Lite (together, “PUBG Mobile”) on October 30, 2020," it said.
The rights to publish PUBG MOBILE in India will be returned to the owner of the PUBG intellectual property, the post further said.
'Protecting user data has always been a top priority and we have always complied with applicable data protection laws and regulations in India. All users’ gameplay information is processed in a transparent manner as disclosed in our privacy policy,' the post reads.
The battle royal game witnessed an increase in the userbase due to the ongoing pandemic.
Earlier this month, the government banned 118 apps over national security concerns, including PUBG Mobile, Baidu and a couple of virtual private networks (VPNs) that allowed access to TikTok that was earlier banned.
The action came after the fresh Chinese incursion attempts in Indian territory at Pangong Tso in eastern Ladakh.
The PUBG game, which has more than 600 million downloads and 50 million active players globally, has nearly 33 million users in India.