Kashmiri men wait before prayers on August 12. REUTERS/Danish Siddiqui

India imposed a total internet blackout in the disputed region of Kashmir in August, and still hasn’t turned services back on after four months.

The blackout is so severe that WhatsApp has removed residents‘ accounts and kicked them off group chats with their family and friends.

A spokesperson for Facebook, which owns WhatsApp, told BuzzFeed News that accounts on the messaging platform expire after 120 days of inactivity „to maintain security and limit data retention.“

Kashmiri users will need to re-register their numbers on WhatsApp once internet services are restored.

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Indian authorities imposed a total communications ban on the disputed region of Kashmir in early August, cutting off crucial internet access for millions of people.

This blackout came around the same time Indian authorities annulled two articles in the country’s constitution, which allowed the disputed territory of Jammu and Kashmir to establish their own laws.

Some of those lines have since been restored for government officials, but most of the residents in the region remain in the dark. Local news outlets still have no way to report the news, residents struggle to reach hospitals and access medicine, and the rest of the region remains totally cut off from the rest of the world.

As of Wednesday, Kashmiris also began unexpectedly disappearing from WhatsApp groups en masse, prompting friends and family outside the region to post screenshots of their unexplained departure on social media.

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After 4 months of total communication blackout, @WhatsApp is automatically deleting Kashmiris from groups.#Kashmir pic.twitter.com/GD1GXKNrX6 Tweet Embed:

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@WhatsApp why is everybody automatically leaving from groups in Kashmir? There is no internet there for last 120 days. pic.twitter.com/xVSWYTIOEf

„I initially thought that internet services had been restored in Kashmir and maybe these people were just removing themselves from WhatsApp groups on their own,“ London-based Kashmiri Mudasir Firdosi told BuzzFeed News, which first reported on the story.

„But I quickly realized that’s not the case.“

While some users found the abrupt deactivations alarming, Facebook said it was simply a result of the company’s policy on inactive accounts.

Getty Images / NurPhoto / Contributor

„To maintain security and limit data retention, WhatsApp accounts generally expire after 120 days of inactivity,“ Facebook told BuzzFeed News in a statement. „When that happens, those accounts automatically exit their WhatsApp groups.“

Facebook did not reveal the number of users affected by this policy, but said users with deactivated accounts will have to register for a new account and re-join those groups when the internet is back.

whatsapp Getty Images / NurPhoto / Contributor

WhatsApp’s FAQ page says that it assumes that if an account is inactive for 45 days, the account holder’s number must be no longer in use and available for other users.

The messaging platform added that it removes account data to ensure the number’s new user can’t misuse it.

India has cut off Kashmir’s internet dozens of time in the past, but this blackout has been the most severe so far.

G Kishan Reddy, India’s minister for home affairs, said earlier this month the government had „resorted“ to cutting off the internet to prevent „aggressive anti-India social media posts being pushed from across the border [in Pakistan] aiming at instigating youth … and glamorizing terrorists and terrorism,“ the country’s Business Standard newspaper reported.