New Delhi: Google said it has temporarily blocked the access of the notified apps on Play Store after the Indian Government banned Tencent’s Xriver, Garena’s Free Fire, NetEase’s Onmyoji Arena and Astracraft along with 50 more Chinese apps on Monday.

Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY)had banned 59 Chinese apps in June 2020 referring to them as being prejudicial to India’s sovereignty, integrity and national security. The list included the popular smartphone app TikTok, Helo, WeChat, Kwai, Clash of Kings, Alibaba’s UC Browser and UC News, Likee, Bigo Live, Shein, Club Factory, and Cam Scanner, besides others. This is the first lot of apps to be banned by the Government, a total of 270 apps were banned since 2020.

Google India said in a statement said that a receipt of the interim order passed under Section 69A of the IT Act, following established process, we have notified the affected developers and have temporarily blocked access to the apps that remained available on the Play Store in India. Apple has also pulled down several of these apps, including Garena Free Fire, from its App Store.

The other banned apps are Music Plus are MP3 Player, equaliser Pro – Volume Booster & Bass Booster, Video Player Media All Format, Music Player – Equaliser & MP3, Volume Booster – Loud Speaker & Sound Booster, CamCard for SalesForce Ent, Isoland 2: Ashes of Time Lite, Rise of Kingdoms: Lost Crusade, APUS Security HD (Pad Version), Parallel Space Lite 32 Support, Viva Video Editor – Snack Video Maker with Music, Nice video baidu, AppLock, Astracraft and more. These apps are being hosted out of countries like Hong Kong or Singapore but the data is ultimately going to servers in Chinese destinations.