Dear friends,

September 2012

One thing leads to the other. This is exactly what happened with the recent violence in the BTC area of Assam giving an opportunity to Pakistan to invoke panic and fear among the people of northeast India who are residing in the metros for different purposes such as employment and education by spreading hate messages. The hi-tech terror groups of Pakistan used the social media as a medium to spread these hate messages which were so threatening that within a night’s time it forced the northeastern community people to leave the metros further enforcing them to leave their jobs and education and above all livelihood. This cyber crime by Pakistan, the first of its kind in the world, destabilized our entire country, but was a treat to watch for those living across the border. Pakistan’s hate terror exposed when the Home Secretary, Government of India Mr. R. K. Singh confirmed that the bulk message were sent to different metros including Bangalore, and the messages read that “the North Eastern community people will be attacked after Id festival i.e., after the 20th of August, 2012”. The impacts of these messages were so massive that it led to huge crowd gathering at the railway stations of Bangalore and other metros, trying to flee from the city as soon as possible. The crowd was so huge that three special trains were provided by railway authorities at Bangalore. The people even entered through windows in a mad rush to save their lives and reach home as quickly as possible. Many were returning because their parents asked them to leave the town as early as possible.

The locals did appeal their northeastern friends not to leave the city which is worth the appreciation but fear took over everything else. The pluck card boards appealing the North eastern people not to leave Bangalore and intervention by the Karnataka Home Minister Mr. R. Ashok with the students yielded no result. He however did not give up and visited the Northeastern states as a goodwill gesture and repeatedly assured full safety and security to the North east people. The reverse has started.

In today’s world the news is fast transmitting because of the improvement in technology and hence the bulk sms’s by Pakistan brought havoc to the people of this country.

It is perhaps for the first time in the history of cyber crime that such a large scale destabilization could take place. It is certainly disturbing why it took so long for the government to block all the social media sites and mobile phone text messages, which was spreading hate messages by manipulation and morphed photographs. For the first time all political parties have condemned and confirmed that any Indian can live and work in any part of the country. Even in parliament all members cutting across party line expressed their solidarity with the people of the North East.

But the question is what will be the mindset of thousands of North Eastern people who destabilize themselves from well settled jobs or studies. Northeast by itself has its emotive issues and area’s of conflict. We only hope no political parties or groups will make this issue more complicated by giving it a communal tone. Let rumor defy and truth win.
The exodus of Northeast was a fall out of Kokrajhar incident in which four lakh plus people destabilized and over 81 people killed. A conflict between native and immigrants, something which had increased pressure on land and opportunities not cared enough resulting in illegal influx in the region from Bangladesh. This also needs to tackle at war footing. Inspite of all measures, things are still not within control. The arrest of Mr. Pradeep Brahma, MLA from Bodoland People’s Front on charge of inciting mob violence was perhaps pre-matured. This has actually added fuel to fire. Had the army been called without delay, things would not have reached to this stage. The government has confirmed that there was a delay of 3 (three) days. The inconvenience caused to the children, pregnant women and senior citizens are too painful and no words can describe the torment they had to undergo.

True, everybody is same at the eye of law but at the time when the emotions are high, the first and right approach is to bring calm, normalcy and settlement of destabilized population. Once that is achieved, law can take its own course to bring justice to all.

Dr. K. K. Jhunjhunwala