India: Text message threats, rumors came from Pakistan

Reuters ^ | Sat Aug 18, 2012 8:47pm EDT | Reporting by Manoj Kumar; Writing by John Chalmers; Editing by Andrew Heavens

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Most of the threatening mobile phone text messages and website images that spread panic among migrants from cities in the south and west of India last week originated in Pakistan, India's interior ministry said on Saturday.

Thousands of students and workers from India's northeast fled Mumbai, Bangalore and other cities, fearing retaliation for recent violence against Muslims in Assam, one of the states in their far-flung corner of the country.

"After checking and verifying we are saying, with responsibility, that the bulk of SMSes (text messages) spreading rumors about the northeast region have come from Pakistan," an interior ministry spokesman said, declining to be named for security reasons.

Clashes between indigenous people in Assam and Muslim settlers from neighboring Bangladesh have killed 75 people and displaced more than 400,000.

More than 30,000 people from the northeast may have fled cities in the south and west, many of them on special extra trains that had been laid on, media reports said on Saturday.

Ringed by China, Myanmar, Bangladesh and Bhutan, India's northeast is home to more than 200 ethnic and tribal groups. Their facial features make them stand out in other states and many migrants from the region are considered Chinese or Nepali.

The ministry spokesman did not say who might have sent the text messages and posted the website images.

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islam, an ideology surrounded by bloody borders.

[BenLurkin]

Small wonder that the Indian navy is sending a good will visit to Haifa.

[Jyotishi]

Excerpt:

Violence in Assam Has Deep Roots

By Samrat
India Ink
The New York Times
July 26, 2012

Biju Boro/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Displaced villagers wait at a relief camp at Bijni village in Chirang District, about 240 kilometers from Guwahati, the capital of India’s northeastern state of Assam, on Thursday.

Is it possible for an entire population to go spontaneously berserk?

That is what seemed to happen in Assam, where a sudden outbreak of riots between the Bodo people, a tribal group, and Bengali Muslims has led to 42 deaths and the displacement of an estimated 150,000 people in a period of less than a week. On Thursday, the federal government sent more troops to the region, adding to the 6,000 army and paramilitary forces already on the ground.

Appearances are, as is often the case, deceptive.

This current situation was actually building up for almost two months, and has roots that run decades deep. On May 29, a local Muslim youth group, the All Bodoland Minority Students’ Union, called for a general shutdown in Kokrajhar district and town, at heart of the Bodo tribe’s homeland. The immediate cause was the alleged removal of a signboard from a mosque on a plot of forest land near the town. The Bodoland Territorial Council administration, created when the Bodo Liberation Tigers, who were seeking a separate state within the Indian union, laid down their weapons in 2003, held that the mosque was an illegal structure occupying forest land.

The administration, run by a former Bodo militant leader, Hagrama Mohilary, prevented the protesters from forcing shops and offices to close. Local reports said eight police officers, a journalist, two tribal employees of the Bodoland secretariat and at least four protesters were injured in skirmishes....

Complete article and comments:

http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/26/violence-in-assam-has-deep-roots/

[BenLurkin]