On Thursday, Twitter confirmed that the official Twitter account and personal website of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been hacked. "We're aware of this activity and have taken steps to secure the compromised account. We are actively investigating the situation. At this time, we are not aware of additional accounts being impacted," a Twitter spokesperson said in a statement.

The account @narendramodi_in, through which the PM's speeches and announcements are regularly released, reportedly sent out tweets asking its followers to donate to the PM National Relief Fund through cryptocurrency.

The post read "I appeal to you all to donate generously to PM National Relief Fund for Covid-19, Now India begin with crypto currency, Kindly Donate eth to 0xae073DB1e5752faFF169B1ede7E8E94bF7f80Be6." However, the tweets are said to be removed later.

The Twitter account has 2.5 million followers and over 37,000 tweets since it was created in May 2011 - is the official handle for PM Modi's personal website -- www.narendramodi.in -- and the ‘Narendra Modi’ mobile application. However, the personal account of the PM remains unaffected.