Pakistan, May 9 -- X (formerly Twitter) announced on Thursday that it had received orders from the Indian government to block over 8,000 accounts-including those of international news outlets and prominent users-but criticized the move as excessive censorship lacking transparency.

The orders include demands to block access in India to accounts belonging to international news organizations and prominent X users, it said.

In most cases, the Indian government has not specified which posts from an account have violated India's local laws, the statement added.

For a significant number of accounts, we did not receive any evidence or justification to block the accounts, it added.

"To comply with the orders, we will withhold the specified acc...