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| - The Russia-born founder of encrypted messenger Telegram, Pavel Durov, said Wednesday his team "quickly" blocked the account of the gunman who killed nine people at a school in Kazan. The tragedy that left seven students and two staff dead spurred calls for tighter gun control laws and stricter regulation of the internet. "Telegram moderators acted quickly: within an hour of receiving the first complaints they blocked the channel over incitement to violence," Durov, 36, wrote on his Telegram channel. He said the gunman -- who has been identified as a 19-year-old former student of the school -- announced his plans in a private Telegram channel, where he was the only member, just minutes before the attack. "Fifteen minutes before the attack, the shooter made the channel public, apparently intending to leave it as a death note," Durov said. He added that the channel was first reported to the Telegram team only after the shooter was detained by police. "Even if law-enforcement somehow monitored all Telegram channels in real time, they would have hardly been able to prevent the tragedy in such a short time," Durov said. Telegram is a popular social media platform in a number of countries, particularly in the former Soviet Union and Iran, and is used both for private communications in chats and sharing information and news on channels. Telegram refuses to cooperate with authorities and hand over encryption keys, which has resulted in its being banned in several countries, including Russia. Moscow reversed course on the app last year, however, after more than two years of unsuccessful attempts to block it. acl/as/bp
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