YouTube is believed to have removed the controversial BBC documentary on Nirbhaya rape convict after the government directed it do so, but users can still access links to the video on popular video sharing site.
Meanwhile, the government also instructed telecom operators to ensure that the video is not available to their subscribers, after reports came that the documentary, which has the interview of the rape convict Mukesh Singh, was available to mobile broadband users, official sources said.
YouTube removed the documentary from its website, sources in the government said.
YouTube has confirmed compliance with the court order as per the notification received by them from the government.
However, the documentary could still be viewed on the site, which officials said, was due to the almost hour-long video being available on the cache servers, that people are able to view.
Indian Computer Emergency Response Team Director General Gulshan Rai said: "The content has been removed from the main server. Some cache content has been accessed by people which is also under removal. Telecom operators have been instructed to block those links as notified to us by Home Ministry and Delhi Police."
Speaking to reporters, Communications and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said: "Department of IT has just complied with the court order, which it was obliged to do wherever any display of documentary including on Internet was prohibited."
"While we believe that access to information is the foundation of a free society and that services like YouTube help people express themselves and share different points of view, we continue to remove content that is illegal or violates our community guidelines, once notified," a YouTube spokesperson said.
This comes against the backdrop of government serving a legal notice on BBC, accusing it of violating the stipulated conditions to make a documentary with a controversial interview of one of the convicts of the December 16, 2012 gangrape incident.
