After the Indian government decided to ban short-video sharing platform TikTok earlier this year, a number of homegrown alternates came to light. Something similar was expected when 118 other apps included PUBG: Mobile were banned on Wednesday evening. It actually took less than 24 hours for the netizens to figure that there is actually a desi version of PUBG available on Google Play Store.  

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Called PABJE, is a game that is heavily inspired by PUBG, to say the least. From the name to its description on Google Play Store to the actual game itself, PABJE is essentially a PUBG clone.  

The game has been created by an India-based developer, Dipak Kattikar, from Maharashtra. People have started downloading the game and talking about it on social media.  

Apart from the ‘PABJE: Player And BattleJung Ends’ game, the developer also has a lite version of the app. The PUBG Lite clone, called PABJE Lite, is roughly 24MB in size.  

The government on Wednesday blocked 118 more mobile apps, including popular game PUBG, citing data privacy concerns and a threat to national security. The apps banned on Wednesday include Baidu, Baidu Express Edition, Alipay, Tencent Watchlist, FaceU, WeChat reading, Government WeChat, Tencent Weiyun, APUS Launcher Pro, APUS Security, Cut Cut, ShareSave by Xiaomi, and CamCard, besides PUBG Mobile and PUBG Mobile Lite, an official statement said.  

It cited numerous complaints received by the IT Ministry from various sources, including several reports about the misuse of some mobile apps available on Android and iOS platforms for stealing and surreptitiously transmitting users' data to servers outside India.  

The game was still running for some users but will be blocked in a phased manner.