Indian PM Narendra Modi's Twitter account hacked

Hackers posted tweets asking for cryptocurrency donations on an account linked to Mr Modi's personal website

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has more than 2.5 million followers on the Twitter account linked to his personal website. Reuters

Hackers gained access to the Twitter account of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's personal website and posted tweets asking its followers to donate to a relief fund through cryptocurrency.

The incident, confirmed by Twitter on Thursday, comes after several accounts of prominent personalities were hacked in July.

Twitter said it was aware of the activity with Mr Modi's website account and had taken steps to secure it.

"We are actively investigating the situation. At this time, we are not aware of additional accounts being impacted," a Twitter spokeswoman said.

Mr Modi's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the tweets posted on the account @narendramodi_in.

The account, with more than 2.5 million followers, is the official Twitter handle for Mr Modi's personal website (https://www.narendramodi.in/) and the Narendra Modi mobile application.

Mr Modi's personal Twitter account, which was unaffected by this incident, has more than 61 million followers.

The tweets, which have since been taken down, asked the followers to donate to the PM National Relief Fund through cryptocurrency.

Hackers had in July accessed Twitter's internal systems to hijack some of the platform's most prominent users including US presidential candidate Joe Biden, former US president Barack Obama and billionaire Elon Musk, and used them to solicit digital currency.