Internet services in Uttar Pradesh’s Lakhimpur Kheri were suspended for the second time last Friday. The suspension order followed tensions in the district after three cars, two of which were reportedly linked to Union Minister Ajay Mishra’s son Ashish Mishra, rammed into a crowd of protesting farmers and killed eight people, including three farmers and a journalist, on October 3.

According to an internet shutdown tracker maintained by Software Freedom Law Centre (SFLC), so far in 2021 internet services have been cut off in 37 instances across several states in India. In 2020, the number of such suspensions rose to 129, compared with 106 in 2019. These actions coincided with the anti-Citizenship Amendment Act protests from late 2019, the Jawaharlal Nehru University students’ protests of early 2020 and the ongoing farmers’ protests.