The Centre has directed the removal of three mobile applications — BAT-BMS, Lossigy and Epoch-i-ion — from app stores after these were allegedly found being misused for remotely disabling battery-operated vehicles, including e-rickshaws, government sources said on Friday.The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has also warned that any other applications found to be facilitating similar activities would face similar action.In the past few days, several videos have been circulating on social media allegedly showing e-rickshaws suddenly coming to a halt after reportedly being switched off remotely. Such an act has left the drivers stranded and has also posed a risk to public safety.Talking to the media, MeitY Secretary S Krishnan said the government came to know of such applications only recently and acted swiftly to have them removed from app stores.”There are a couple of apps which came up to our notice yesterday and both of them have been taken down from the app stores. The point is that due care should be exercised by the stores,” he said.Krishnan also highlighted the responsibility of app store operators to strengthen scrutiny and ensure that applications capable of causing public harm were not made available to users.Responding to questions on the legal framework governing Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) and the possibility of banned applications being accessed through such services, Krishnan said the issue required a combination of legal and technological measures.”It is a techno-legal aspect. We have to look at both a technology solution in addition to just a legal solution. Legal solutions could be there. There is a requirement even under certain guidelines currently for VPNs to register. What happens is many of them choose not to register. I mean, you have to register to operate in India, but they offer it from elsewhere. And it is offered at the software level and therefore we have to find technology-based solutions to address this,” he said.