NEW DELHI – Blame games have become part of the politics, the recent being India blaming Pakistan social media for spreading rumors that had caused thousands of northeast people from India to panic and flee from the country, reports The Washington Post.
Some bulk of rumors sourced from Pakistan had triggered panic among people from northeast India in Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra. “A total of 76 websites were identified where morphed images were uploaded and bulk of these images were uploaded from Pakistan,” said Union Home Minister, R K Singh. The images of atrocities allegedly inflicted upon Muslims had sparked tensions, leading to attacks in western and southern cities on people from northeast.
Three weeks of clashes in remote Assam between the members of the Bodo tribal community and Muslims had claimed at least 80 lives and had displaced more than 400,000 people. Thousands of people from the northeast had fled after hate messages were spread through mobile phones and on social media sites.
On the other hand, Pakistan had rejected the Indian stand on the doctored MMS that had triggered exodus of northeast people. Pakistan had slammed the way India had failed to use diplomatic channels to share the information and said that everything wrong in India could not be blamed on Pakistan. India should have used the diplomatic channels before making such statements, Pakistan had said. Pakistan had assured India that it would look into the matter that had caused panic among the northeast people, but demanded that India to first provide evidence. Pakistan had asked India to provide evidence before blaming the country. The Pakistan High Commission had strongly rejected the charges and contended that such remarks widened the trust deficit between the two countries and India should solve its own problems instead of mudslinging. India has been readying evidence on the morphed pictures of Assam violence which had sparked the exodus and would present it when the External Affairs Minister of India, SM Krishna would go to Islamabad next month.
The government have now banned bulk SMS AND MMS messages for 15 days in view of the exodus of the people from the northeast from cities like Bangalore, Chennai and Hyderabad following rumors that they would be attacked. Wild rumors had spread that people from northeast region would be attacked after Ramadan to avenge the recent ethnic violence in Assam. The ban has been imposed throughout the country. So no cell phone user can send a message to more than five people. MMSes have also been restricted to 25 kb. This was the step taken by the government to curb Assam related violence. The ban had come into force after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had said that the spread of rumors by miscreants had led to people from northeast to flee from different parts of the country. The banning of SMSes would mean huge loss in revenue for the cellular operators in India.
