A PhD candidate claims that a powerful “gay network” is using “messaging apps” to help LGB students cheat exams and gain positions of power in society.

In a letter circulating social media Amit Kumar Maurya, a student at Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research (IGIDR) in Mumbai, claims that he is risking his life by unearthing “How gay students are cheating in exams.”

Maurya claims that LGB people have established a “powerful” network on smart-phone messaging apps that is “invisible to the straight population.”

“The gay network is very powerful because of its invisibility, large size and strong bonding among members.” according to Maurya.

He goes on to claim that “5-10% of MPS, MLAs, local politicians, senior beaurocrats [sic], police officers, billionaires and top corporate executives must be gays” and therefore, LGB people are “very likely to use their power to promote their community, sometimes legally and other times not so much”.

He goes on to claim that gay professors, computer technicians and other members of staff distribute exam papers to gay students through “the network”.

Maurya does not provide any evidence to back up his claims, and ends his letter by asking the reader to share the letter to help “stop this scam”.

This is not the first time Maurya has attempted to raise awareness of the “gay network”, having previously published an extensive post on Facebook titled “Gayfication of Institutions and Examinations: Threats from Invisible Gay Network”.

He claims that “I support gay rights but not gay wrongs.”

Currently homosexuality in India is illegal after a Supreme Court decision that reinstated the country’s colonial-era anti-gay Section 377.

However, several lawmakers have been campaigning for the decriminalisation of homosexuality.