In May 2025, users in India were reportedly unable to access the X accounts of former Pakistan prime minister Imran Khan and Pakistan Peoples Party leader Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, or the Instagram account of singer Abida Parveen. Platform notices described the measures as India-specific restrictions made in response to an Indian legal demand—not global deletions or worldwide account suspensions.
What was restricted
| Person | Platform | Reported action in India |
|---|---|---|
| Imran Khan | X | Account withheld from users in India |
| Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari | X | Account withheld from users in India |
| Abida Parveen | Account unavailable or restricted to users in India |
The account-by-account distinction matters: the two political figures were associated with X restrictions, while Parveen’s case involved Instagram. Reports from Scroll.in and Hindustan Times placed the restrictions in early May 2025.
What users saw
Instagram reportedly displayed a message saying the account was unavailable in India because Instagram had complied with a legal request to restrict the content. X used comparable “withheld in response to a legal demand” notices for Khan’s and Bhutto-Zardari’s accounts.
A “legal demand” notice identifies the basis asserted by the requesting authorities, but it does not by itself disclose which Indian ministry or agency made the request, whether it was a court order or administrative direction, which law was invoked, or whether specific posts were named. No publicly available material cited here establishes the exact legal instrument for each account.
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Why the restrictions happened
The restrictions came after the April 22, 2025 attack in Pahalgam, Jammu and Kashmir, in which reports said 26 people were killed. India–Pakistan relations deteriorated sharply afterward. Indian authorities and reporting linked a wider set of online restrictions to concerns about alleged Pakistani propaganda, misinformation, provocative content and national security.
That context does not establish a separate offence by Khan, Bhutto-Zardari or Parveen. The reports do not provide an account-specific allegation or identify a particular post that triggered each restriction. It is more accurate to say the three cases occurred amid a broader Indian response to the crisis than to claim that each person was individually found to have violated Indian law.
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Timeline of the wider digital restrictions
- April 22, 2025: The Pahalgam attack was reported to have killed 26 people. Hindustan Times reported the attack and subsequent online measures.
- April 27, 2025: A wider Indian order reportedly covered 16 Pakistani YouTube channels, including channels linked to major news organisations.
- May 1, 2025: Reports said Instagram access to several Pakistani actors and other public figures was restricted in India.
- May 4–5, 2025: Coverage reported the India-specific X restrictions affecting Khan and Bhutto-Zardari and the Instagram restriction affecting Parveen. Scroll.in
- July 2–3, 2025: Some Pakistani-linked accounts reportedly became visible again in India and were then blocked once more. Officials attributed that temporary restoration to a technical error; the episode did not prove that every account in the May reports followed the same pattern. Hindustan Times
What “blocked” means here
India-only access restriction
The reported notices described geographic withholding: the profiles were unavailable to users in India, while the accounts themselves were not reported as deleted worldwide. Availability can vary by country, network and later platform decisions, so a user outside India may see a different result.
Not a ban on the people
The action concerned access to particular online profiles. It was not a general legal prohibition on Khan, Bhutto-Zardari or Parveen, and the available reporting does not show a global account suspension.
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Not necessarily a post takedown
An unavailable profile is different from removal of an individual post, video or tweet. The reports here described account-level access restrictions and did not publish the underlying requests showing whether particular posts were also named.
Part of a broader campaign, but not one proven identical order
Indian restrictions were also reported against Pakistani actors such as Mahira Khan, Hania Aamir and Ali Zafar, as well as officials, athletes, journalists, broadcasters and YouTube channels. Those actions should not automatically be treated as one order covering every person or service. The public reports identify a broader campaign, but not a single published instrument that explains all cases.
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Pakistan Peoples Party figures condemned the restriction of Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari’s account, according to Dawn. That reaction is a political response, not independent confirmation of the legal allegations implied by the platform notices.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.A separate later case involving Pakistan
In January 2026, Pakistan’s Telecommunication Authority told the Islamabad High Court that it had made multiple requests concerning Imran Khan’s X account, with most requests reportedly declined or left unanswered by X. Dawn, Dawn’s follow-up report and Business Recorder covered that proceeding. It was a separate Pakistani effort and should not be confused with India’s May 2025 geographic restrictions.
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What is still unknown
- The exact legal order, requesting authority and statutory provision for each account.
- Whether the restrictions were temporary, permanent or periodically changed.
- Whether all three accounts were restricted at exactly the same time.
- Whether each account remained inaccessible in India after the July 2025 technical-error episode.
- Whether any individual post, rather than the profile as a whole, was separately targeted.
As of the reports cited here, there was no basis to say that X deleted Khan’s or Bhutto-Zardari’s accounts, that Instagram permanently banned Parveen, or that any of the three accounts was removed worldwide.
The Bottom Line
India’s May 2025 action was a set of platform-enforced, India-specific restrictions: X withheld Imran Khan’s and Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari’s accounts, while Instagram restricted Abida Parveen’s account. The measures followed the Pahalgam attack and wider India–Pakistan tensions, but public reporting did not establish a distinct offence or a global ban for any of the three people.
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