Pak websites blamed for exodus
Source: The Sangai Express
New Delhi, August 19, 2012:
Home Secretary has accused websites in Pakistan of spreading false rumors that caused thousands of people from India's remote northeast to panic and flee the southern city of Bangalore.
They feared they would be attacked in retaliation for ethnic violence in their home state.
Home Secretary R.K.Singh told reporters late Saturday that investigators had found that most of the websites used images of people killed in cyclones and earthquakes and passed them off as Muslims killed in violence earlier this year to spread fear of revenge attacks.
He said most of the images were uploaded from Pakistan.
The sites have now been blocked.
Singh said India would discuss the matter with officials in Pakistan but gave no other details about the websites.
The two countries routinely blame each other for fomenting domestic strife.
There was no immediate reaction from officials in Pakistan.
The exodus from Bangalore followed clashes in Assam state in recent weeks between ethnic Bodos and Muslims settlers that killed more than 50 people and displaced 400,000 others.
Those fleeing Bangalore said they had heard text messages had been circulating threatening retaliatory attacks by Muslims.
Decades of ethnic violence have forced hundreds of thousands of young people from the northeast to move away in search of education and jobs.
They find work mostly in the service sector in big cities, working in restaurants, shops and airlines.
The recent rioting in Assam mainly involved land rights.
It has largely been brought under control, although sporadic outbreaks have occurred in the past week.
The Bodos and Muslim settlers, who mostly came from the former East Pakistan before it became Bangladesh in 1971, have clashed repeatedly over the years but the recent violence is the worst since the mid-1990s. NE exodus Thrown out of running train, 2 killed Jalpaiguri/Katihar, Aug 19 : Two passengers of a Guwahati bound special train carrying North East people fleeing Bangalore were killed and seven others injured today after they were beaten up and pushed out by unidentified persons.
Police and railway authorities remained tightlipped on the identity of the attacked passengers, who hailed from Assam, pending an investigation.
Special trains were operated by Railways from Bangalore to ferry passengers fleeing the city over fears of attacks on them sparked by rumours in the wake of Assam violence.
The police found two bodies and the seven injured persons near the tracks at Belakoba railway station, a few km from New Jalpaiguri station.
"The two had died on the spot.
We do not know the reason behind the incident.
We are investigating the matter," New Jalpaiguri area manager (rail) Partho Sarthi Seal said.
Railway sources quoting one of the injured passengers admitted to the district hospital said they were looted of their belongings and beaten up severely before being thrown out of the train by unknown persons.
The injured have been admitted to the district hospital and the North Bengal Medical College Hospital.
A large number of people blocked train movement at the New Jalpaiguri station in protest against the incident as a result of which some Assam-bound express trains and local trains were stranded.
Later in the day, the blockade was lifted.
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