Singh moves to cool panic as thousands flee metros

Reuters/New Delhi

A woman waits with her child for the train to start as they make their way back home at a railway station in Bangalore. Centre: Northeastern migrants take a nap at a Chennai platform while waiting to board the train to Guwahati. Right: Security personnel patrol the national highway in Rangiya in Kamrup (Rural) district of Assam

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh assured migrants from the northeast of the country that they were safe as thousands fled Mumbai, Bangalore and other cities yesterday, fearing a backlash from violence against Muslims in Assam.Railway authorities have deployed extra trains from Bangalore and other cities for the two-day journey back to Assam, a northeastern state famous for its tea plantations and oilfields. Some media reports said that by yesterday as many as 15,000 had left cities in the south and west.The mass flight by students and workers back to their homes in a far-flung corner of the country was triggered by widespread rumours that Muslims were seeking revenge for the Assam violence.“What is at stake is the unity of our country. What is at stake is communal harmony,” Singh told parliament. “I assure you ... that we will do our utmost to ensure that our friends and our children and our citizens from the northeast feel secure in any and every part of our country.”Muslims across India have been alarmed by clashes in recent weeks between indigenous people in Assam and Muslim settlers from neighbouring Bangladesh.At least 75 people have been killed and more than 400,000 displaced there. India’s post-independence history has been scarred by tension between religious and ethnic groups, which has sometimes erupted in blood-letting.While local tensions between Hindus and Muslims have often spread across the country, this is the first time that ethnic unrest in the remote northeast has had a domino effect in mainland India.Two people were killed and dozens wounded last week when about 10,000 people rioted in Mumbai, the country’s financial capital, following a protest by Muslims against the violence in the northeast.Talk of revenge attacks has swirled all week, with threats of brutal attacks being carried on social media and mobile phone text messages. “When we go out at night, they threaten us by saying that they will cut us into pieces,” claimed Raju Kumar, as he waited to board a train to his home in Assam at Mumbai railway station. “They say that you people are threatening us in Assam and killing us there, we will not spare you here.”Some websites have fuelled communal tension by misusing pictures of Tibetan monks at a funeral service after an earthquake in eastern Tibet in 2010, while writing about violence in Myanmar involving Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims.The police in Bangalore sought to scotch rumours of impending revenge attacks, sending a mass text message that told northeastern citizens: “Do not panic or heed to rumour.”The Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM), a Muslim political party in Hyderabad, also assured people from Assam and other northeastern states they had nothing to fear.“People from any part of India are free to live and work in any city in the country. They face no threat here,” MIM chief and lawmaker Asaduddin Owaisi said after a visit to migrant neighbourhood of the city. Analysts say political parties and religious organisations have exploited the tension in the northeast for their ends.