Bangalore/Chennai: The exodus of fear-stricken North Easterners in the wake of rumours of retaliatory attacks on them after the Assam violence abated on Sunday in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.
In Bangalore, police beefed up security, deploying 17,000 personnel as government put its security machinery in top gear to instill a sense of confidence among North Easterners.
Three companies each of CRPF and RAF, 25 KSRP (Karnataka State Reserve Police) platoons and 35 City Armed Reserve platoons, 1,500 trainee policemen and 500 Home Guards are also being deployed here, Police Commissioner Jyothi Prakash Mirji told reporters.
Pickets would be posted and round the clock patrolling done to maintain law and order, he said, adding peace committee meetings have been held with various communities, with security measures being taken in view of Eid also.
Home Minister R Asoka who a met a three-member Nagaland delegation, comprising two ministers and its IGP, told them the exodus had stopped after government assured them safety.
“Everything is calm. There is no need to panic. I have told Police Commissioner to work 24 hours on August 20. I myself will work 24 hours and patrol in the night to build confidence among all communities that Bangalore is safe,” he told reporters after meeting the delegation.
“We have arrested 16 persons in the city during the last three days for intimidating or sending disturbing SMSes to the North East population. The situation is under control,” he said.
In Chennai, the exit of North Easterners from the city dwindled on Sunday with only a few hundred seen in the central railway station.
Railway sources said three compartments were added to a train to the North East on Sunday morning to accommodate those who arrived from Bangalore.
Police said the number of those leaving, which was around 2000 every day, had dropped to less than 1,000. North Eastern people, who left Chennai for their home towns, are mostly from Tiruppur and Namakkal in Tamil Nadu.
Meanwhile, India on Sunday asked Pakistan to crack down on elements based there who were using social media networking sites to fan communal sentiments and create a scare among people from northeast in this country.
Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde in a telephonic conversation with his Pakistani counterpart Rehman Malik took up the issue of social media-networking sites being misused by elements in Pakistan to circulate false pictures and reports in a bid to create communal strife in India.
A Home Ministry spokesperson said Shinde expressed concern over this issue when Malik telephoned him to convey Eid greetings, a day after Union Home Secretary RK Singh said bulk of the rumours that triggered panic among people of Northeastern states in Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra were sourced from Pakistan.
According to Singh, a total of 76 websites were identified where morphed images were uploaded and bulk of these were uploaded in Pakistan.
According to a report prepared by the Home Ministry, a Pakistan-based hardline group is suspected to have been involved in doctoring images and spreading them across social networking sites to whip up communal passions and create panic among people of northeastern region living across India.
Government is also learnt to have ordered blocking of 80 more Internet pages and user-accounts today on social networking sites including Facebook, Google and Twitter to avoid panic among the North Easterners. (PTI)