Mobile internet users in Bangladesh were able to regain access to their Facebook and Messenger accounts nearly six hours after an outage today.

Officials of mobile service operators said they were asked to resume mobile data from this evening.

Around noon today, an agency under the home affairs ministry instructed mobile operators to enforce a the restrictions, according to people with knowledge of the development.

The decision coincided with students' nationwide prayer and march scheduled for today to condemn the killings and arrests of protesters centring the quota reform movement.

On July 31, the government unblocked social media platforms such as Facebook, TikTok, and YouTube as the authorities relaxed a curfew with longer daytime breaks.

Mobile internet services, used by 12.7 crore subscribers, were blocked from July 17 as the violence intensified.

A day later, broadband internet was blocked, which severely affected public life and a wide range of economic activities including utility bill payments, online banking, international communications, clearance of goods from ports and digital commerce.

The government restored broadband internet on a limited scale on July 23.

Mobile internet was resumed on July 28 after more than 10 days of outage. Social media platforms Facebook, TikTok, WhatsApp and YouTube were resumed two days later.

Today, Telegram, a messaging platform that allows users to send large files, was also apparently blocked.

The Daily Star called State Minister for Telecoms and ICT Zunaid Ahmed Palak multiple times after the outage, but his mobile phone was unreachable.

Some people said they could not use these apps as of 12 pm today before they lost access. Sources said the filtering process takes time to be fully enforced.