India has called on WhatsApp, the Facebook-owned messaging service, to launch a crackdown on 'sinister' fake messages blamed for a string of lynchings and murders in the south Asian country.

At least 20 people have been killed in India after false messages were circulated on WhatsApp. About 200 million people use the free messaging service in India, WhatsApp's biggest market.

The messages, some of which included fake warnings about child kidnap gangs operating in remote villages, were typically posted in WhatsApp groups, meaning that many people saw the same messages at the same time.

India’s IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said WhatsApp had agreed to develop tools to help the Indian government control the spread of fake messages .

Mr Prasad told reporters that India wants WhatsApp to create a grievance system that will allow people to report misleading messages and speak to WhatsApp employees for help in removing the content.

Another request that the Indian government has made is for WhatsApp to create an Indian subsidiary, rather than handling issues in the country from its headquarters in the US.