Guntur police explained that the reference to the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in an official email request sent to social media platform X was a ‘clerical error’.
The controversy started when X notified a YSR Congress Party activist that three of his posts had been flagged by a law enforcement authority identified in the platform’s communication as the FBI. Guntur police have now said the reference was entered inadvertently while preparing the request and that there was no intention to misrepresent the identity of the Andhra Pradesh Police.
According to an official at the New Indian Express speaking on condition of anonymity, the reference was made when the request was being put before the department's IT core team, which monitors social media accounts.
According to the official, the team identified fake or unverified posts and approached X seeking action. The police suggested that "FBI" may have been selected mistakenly from a dropdown field while submitting the request.
Andhra Pradesh Police did not intend to misrepresent itself as the U.S. federal agency, he added.
How The FBI Reference Came To Light
The issue came up after YSRCP activist Nagarjuna Yadav, who runs the X account @ImYanamala received a notification from X on July 28.
The notification said that three of his posts had been flagged by law enforcement authorities for allegedly violating Indian law. It identified the requesting organisation as the "FBI".
The posts were about alleged irregularities in the recruitment process by the District Selection Committee or DSC. The unemployed youth were asked to protest in one post and some of their comments were about the recruitment process and the HRD Minister of Andhra Pradesh, Nara Lokesh.
Did a foreign police force just try to trick @X into censoring my account by pretending to be the FBI? Yes. Yes they did. 🤯
— ravikiran molakala (@molakalaravi) September 15, 2026
X Support just emailed me saying the Andhra Pradesh Police in India submitted a takedown request against me, but the Inspector literally listed his… pic.twitter.com/ElonvmWrQB
Yadav subsequently contacted X asking for information about the authority that had submitted the request. On September 13 X provided information on the request.
As X noted, the request had actually come from the official Guntur Police email address [email protected]. The writer was Inspector AV Brahmam, and the organisation name was FBI.
X said the request had not come from the United States' Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Police Explanation Raises Questions over The Process
While Guntur police had stated the FBI reference was an inadvertent mistake, it raised questions about how official requests to social media platforms are made and verified.
The New Indian Express reported that police had indeed mentioned "FBI" in their request to X, so that the platform responded to their request. The report said previous appeals for police to take down posts on X and Instagram had allegedly not received the desired response.
A second report from The South First also cited police department sources who said the FBI reference was deliberately entered because earlier requests to social media platforms had been ignored. This is different from the recent public explanation of a Guntur police official, in which he described the entry as a clerical error.
The conflicting accounts leave questions about who entered the organisation name and what verification was carried out before the request was submitted to X.
What The Controversy Is About
The episode has caught the eye of many because the FBI is a federal law enforcement agency and the request was sent from an Andhra Pradesh government email.
X's response showed that the request was not from the American agency. Instead, the request was sent by the Guntur Police email address, and the organisation name was 'FBI'.
That is also the topic of wider debate between government requests to social media platforms and the process by which authorities take action against online posts.
Former Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister and YSR Congress Party president YS Jagan Mohan Reddy criticised the incident on September 16 and questioned who authorised the takedown operation. His remarks were political allegations and are separate from the Guntur police's explanation of the email.
For now, Guntur police claim that the FBI reference was a clerical error and do not intend to blame it on the FBI. X’s reporting and different accounts of the reason the term was used in the request have kept questions alive as to why the FBI was used in the request.
