NEW DELHI: Stepping up its effort to quell rumours that people from the northeastern part of the country would be attacked to avenge the ethnic violence in Assam, the government has ordered blocking of more than 250 websites in which morphed images and videos were uploaded that sparked an exodus of northeastern citizens from other states.
Home ministry officials said some 130 websites have been blocked till now while the rest will be blocked shortly, PTI reported.
The government on Saturday said the bulk SMSes and MMSes that triggered panic among the northeastern people had been traced to Pakistan and a protest would be lodged with Islamabad. "Pakistan is trying to create trouble by inciting people. This exposes its attempt at cyber warfare against India," said union home secretary RK Singh.
In the MMSes, those who died in cyclone Nargis in Myanmar were shown as victims of the Assam violence. "Seventy-six websites were identified with morphed images. Most of these were uploaded in Pakistan," Singh said.
Pakistan has assured India that it will "look into" its assertion that elements in Pakistan used social media to whip up panic that led to the exodus of people from the northeastern states, but demanded that New Delhi first provide evidence for it.
"The Indian minister has said that rumours were generated from Pakistan through cellular services," Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik told reporters in Islamabad while referring to his phone conversation with India's Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde Sunday.
"I had requested him (Shinde) to provide evidence in this regard to us and we will take care of it," Malik added.
Eight people have been arrested in Bangalore for rumour-mongering and another eight for attacking or threatening people from the Northeast.
Two cyber intelligence units --- Computer Emergency Response Team-India (CERT-IN) and the National Technical Research Organisation, which is under the national security adviser --- are countering the rumour-mongering from the neighbourhood, sources said.
Thousands of people from the northeast fled the southern Indian cities of Bangalore and Chennai after hate messages were spread through mobile phones and on Facebook in the past two days, threatening retaliation for the ethnic violence in the northeastern state of Assam last month. (Agencies)
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