As protests about a new citizenship bill spread throughout India last week, tens of millions of people were plunged into cyber-darkness as the government enforced internet blackouts in dozens of cities and districts across the country.

The Indian government cut internet service in a bid to crack down on protests against a new citizenship law seen as discriminatory towards Muslims. Outages have been reported all over India, including in parts of New Delhi and as many as 18 cities in the state of Uttar Pradesh. 

While India’s main tech center, Bangalore, has not been impacted by the blackouts, other regional cities have been hard hit by the outages.

Abhijeet Mukherjee, 35, CEO of a tech media company called Guiding Tech, is from Ghaziabad, a city near New Delhi, which experienced more than 24 hours without internet on Friday and Saturday. On Friday morning, Mukherjee was woken at 4am by his young daughter’s cries.