NEW DELHI: India has told WhatsApp to station its grievance officer in the country instead of in the US, and that the messaging platform would have to trace the origin of messages if required by law enforcement agencies. This was conveyed to WhatsApp vice president Chris Daniels when he met Union minister for electronics and IT, Ravi Shankar Prasad, in New Delhi on Wednesday.“On the issue of traceability, I emphasised that when we talk of traceability, we don’t talk of decrypting messages,” Prasad said after the meeting. “We insist rather on location and identification of the sender of WhatsApp messages when such messages lead to provocation of violence, heinous offences and other serious crimes.” WhatsApp has promised to look into the matter and respond. But in an email interview to ET, Daniels said the messaging service is unlikely to give up on the “core” issue of maintaining its encryption standards, and will announce an India head by the end of the year. He added that WhatsApp wants a “level playing field” for its services in India.WhatsApp has been under fire in India over its platform being used to spread rumours that have led to violence in several parts of the country. In a previous meeting with Prasad in August, Daniels was told the company needed to set up a local entity, hire a local grievance officer, and act fast on complaints from law enforcement agencies and the government on fake messages circulated on the platform. WhatsApp was asked then too to ensure traceability of fake messages on its platform.While the company agreed to appoint a grievance officer and set up a corporate entity here, it has said multiple times that ensuring traceability would break its end-to-end encryption standard. The company appointed a grievance officer for India, stationed in the US. On having a local entity, WhatsApp informed Prasad that it has incorporated a company in India and it will begin operations shortly.WhatsApp has also partnered with Invest India through the Startup India initiative, and will invest about $250,000 as seed funding in the top five winners of the WhatsApp StartUp Challenge. An additional $250,000 will be directed to select entrepreneurs to promote their WhatsApp business numbers on Facebook and drive discovery of their businesses.A WhatsApp spokesperson said, “We appreciate the opportunity to meet with government leaders, including Minister Prasad who confirmed his support for encryption and the privacy of our users. WhatsApp is deeply committed to serving the people of India and working closely with civil society and government leaders to help address abuse on our platform. Our new Head of WhatsApp India, who will be named by the end of the year, will build a local team that can serve our customers in India as well as work with partners and government leaders to help keep people safe.