New Delhi: Facebook-owned messaging app WhatsApp has appointed Abhijit Bose as head of India operations, the company said in a statement on Wednesday.  Bose, who will join the messaging platform early next year, will build WhatsApp's first full-country team outside of California and would be based in Gurugram, WhatsApp said in a statement. 

As a successful entrepreneur himself, Bose knows what it takes to build meaningful partnerships that can serve businesses across India, he added. He joins WhatsApp from Ezetap where he served as co-founder and CEO. Founded in 2011, Ezetap is an electronic payments company backed by top-tier Venture Capitalists.   

Bose and his team will focus on helping businesses, both large and small, connect with their customers, it added. "WhatsApp is deeply committed to India and we are excited to keep building products that help people connect and support India's fast-growing digital economy," Matt Idema, chief operating officer of WhatsApp, said.

The appointment comes at a time when the Facebook-owned company has been under tremendous pressure to put in place a mechanism to curb fake messages on its platform. The government has been pressing WhatsApp to develop tools to combat fake or false messages, and also identify message originators.

Apart from the traceability request, the government had asked WhatsApp to set up a local corporate presence and appoint a grievance officer to address complaints. Whatsapp has recently appointed a grievance officer for India.

Following multiple incidents of mob-lynching across the country, the government had slapped WhatsApp with two notices, with the second one warning that it will treat the messaging platform as an abettor of rumour propagation and legal consequences will follow if adequate checks are not put in place.