BANGALORE, India -- The Indian government has ordered Internet service providers to shut off access to 17 Web sites and blogs in the aftermath of the July 11 bomb attacks that killed more than 200 people on commuter trains in Mumbai.

The national Department of Telecommunications (DOT) issued the order two days after the bombings, said Deepak Maheshwari, secretary of the Delhi-based Internet Service Providers Association of India. The DOT didn't specify why it wanted the URLs of the sites to be blocked, he said. But according to sources, the government suspects that terrorists were using the targeted sites to communicate with one another.

Maheshwari said that some Internet service providers barred access to entire domains, such as Google Inc.'s www.blogspot.com site, instead of the subdomains that they were ordered to block. The ISP Association last week urged its members to remove the blanket blocks, he said.

Under India's Information Technology Act, Web sites can be blocked if they are found to be promoting hate, violence, terrorism or pornography. However, the DOT's order drew criticism from many bloggers, who claimed that the government was attempting to subvert freedom on the Internet.

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