Indian PM warns of dangers
of social media
08 SEPTEMBER 2012 -
21H27
AFP - Indian Premier
Manmohan Singh warned Saturday over the use of social media to inflame ethnic
tensions after online threats and text messages sparked a mass exodus of
migrants from southern cities.
The use of "social
media to aggravate the communal situation is a new challenge", Singh told
a conference of senior police officials in New Delhi.
"We need to fully
understand how these new media are used by miscreants... and devise strategies
to counter the propaganda that is carried out by these new means," he
said.
Tens of thousands of migrant
workers and students from India's northeast fled last month from the high-tech
centre of Bangalore and other southern cities.
The unprecedented exodus
was triggered by inflammatory text messages and videos posted online which
warned that Muslims would target them in reprisal for deadly clashes between
the tribals and Muslims in remote Assam state.
The government imposed a
two-week ban on bulk messages that ended in late August and blocked some
Internet pages to halt the spread of incendiary material that could fuel
tensions.
Ethnic clashes in India's
northeastern state of Assam between the Bodo tribals and Muslims have claimed
around 90 lives and prompted some 400,000 people to take refuge in camps.
India is a hugely diverse
nation which prizes a reputation for secular tolerance but where ethnic and
religious tensions often simmer beneath the surface.
The use of the text
messages and videos posted online to stir up fears have been deeply alarming to
Indian authorities.
Singh also spoke of
"increasing infiltration attempts" by Pakistan-based militants into
Indian Kashmir and across India's international border with Pakistan as the
South Asian rivals held peace talks in Islamabad.
The warning came as Indian
Foreign Minister S.M. Krishna was on a three-day visit to Pakistan, where he
was to hold talks with his Pakistani counterpart Hina Rabbani Khar.
Last year, the
nuclear-armed rivals resumed a tentative peace process that had collapsed after
Islamist gunmen from Pakistan entered the coastal city of Mumbai by sea and
killed 166 people in 2008.
While violence in Indian
Kashmir has declined, militants are "maintaining their ability to use the
sea route" to launch an attack against India, Singh warned.
India and Pakistan have
fought three wars since independence in 1947, two of them over Kashmir. Each of
them hold part of the Himalayan region but claim it in full.
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