In a huge blow to the campaign against Chinese video-sharing app TikTok, it has emerged that its counter mobile application Mitron was conceived in Pakistan. Google has now removed Mitron from Play Store citing huge security issues.
According to several news reports, Shivank Agarwal from IIT Roorkee had bought the source code for Mitron from a Pakistani company Qboxus, whose founder Irfan Sheikh said that he sold the code for $34 or INR 2,600. Sheikh said that he expected his clients to build on the source code to create something on their own.
“But Mitron’s developer has taken our exact product, changed the logo and uploaded it on their store,” he was quoted by News18 as saying. Irfan told Indian Express that the Mitron app had serious ‘privacy issues because the app developer has not uploaded the privacy policy.’
Neither Google nor Shivank has clarified why Mitron was removed from Google Play Store.
The campaign against Chinese products gained momentum after several media reports claimed how Chinese soldiers had entered Indian territory to occupy a large swathe of land. The Indian government has so far not commented on the thorny issue but US President Donald Trump said that he had spoken to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who according to him, was not ‘in a good mood’ over transgressions made by the Chinese army.