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Riot fears spark panic in India

Thousands flee; govt urges calm, warns rumour mongers

Agencies
Thousands of Indians from the northeast of the country fled to southern cities yesterday after rumours they would be attacked by Muslims in reprisal for recent ethnic violence in Assam, officials said.
Railway officials said they had put on extra trains from Bangalore to the north-
eastern state of Assam to accommodate a spike in demand after 6,000 tickets were sold since Wednesday evening.
The Indian government said there was no threat to anyone from the region living anywhere in the country and warned of strict action against rumour mongers.
The chief ministers of Assam and Karnataka, the slate that is home to Bangalore, both appealed for calm and said there was no reason for the exodus, as police took to Twitter and the local airwaves to knock down the rumours.
"If rumours are spread, strict action will be taken against those who indulge in such activities,” Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde told reporters outside the Indian Parliament House.
He said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and he had spoken to Karnataka Chief Minister Jagadish Shettar, requesting him to ask the people to share information on rumour mongers.
Police in the south said there were rumours that northeastern people, who look more East Asian or
Tibetan than most Indians, would be attacked after the end of tire Muslim holy month of Ramadan around August 20.
Muslims across India have been alarmed by clashes in recent weeks between indigenous people in the northeastern stale of Assam. About 75 people have been killed and more than 400,000 displaced.
Separately, at least 80 people were killed and tens of thousands were displaced in the western Myanmar state of Rakhine in days of clashes between members of the majority Buddhist community and minority Muslims that erupted in June.
The violence has angered Muslims around the world and raised tension in India where religious and ethnic
divisions have simmered for decades, occasionally erupting into communal bloodletting.
There have been reports of isolated assaults in the southern cities of Pune and Mysore targeting people of northeastern appearance. And a violent rally by Muslims in Mumbai on Saturday protesting against the Assam unrest added to the confusion.
"We are investigating the source of these rumours and who is behind them," Bangalore deputy commissioner of police Vincent S D'Souza told AFP.
"Mischief-mongers and vested interests are misusing social media, mobile and lire Internet to spread these rumours and create panic in the people of the northeastern