A whistleblower has alleged that the Indian government "forced Twitter to put one of its agents on the payroll, with access to user data at a time of intense protests in the country".

Washington Post reported at length on these allegations from Peiter Zatko, Twitter's former head of security. Zatko was fired by Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal in January.

On the Indian government's purported "agent", Zatko's complaint said "supporting information for that claim has gone to the National Security Division of the Justice Department and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence".

Washington Post said: "Another person familiar with the matter agreed that the employee was probably an agent."

Time magazine, which also accessed the whistleblower document, said Zatko alleged Twitter "hired two people that he believes were Indian government agents". He believed these "agents" had "direct unsupervised access” to internal information.

Among Zatko's other allegations is that Twitter executives "withheld facts" about the number of breaches faced by the social media platform and its "lack of protection for user data".

He said Twitter "violated the terms of an 11-year-old settlement with the Federal Trade Commission by falsely claiming it had a solid security plan". Washington Post reported that the whistleblower document revealed Twitter prioritised user grown over containing spam, with bonuses tied to increases in user growth.

Agrawal did not respond to Washington Post's request for comment.