More content blocked,India raises fake images with Pak

The government also blocked an additional 80 web pages as well as user accounts and blogs for circulating offensive material. On Saturday,76 web pages had been blocked for the same reasons. Home Secretary R K Singh had said a bulk of the images and videos on these web pages,mostly doctored or taken from events unrelated to the violence in Assam,had been uploaded from Pakistan.

While there was no official response from the Pakistan High Commission,sources rejected Indian government allegations. Pakistan wants a stable and peaceful neighbour, said a source,adding that such charges widen the trust deficit between the two countries.

A Home Ministry report hinted at the involvement of Pakistan-based terror outfit Jamaat-e-Islami in starting the rumours. It has identified a video posted on YouTube on July 13 showing a protest march against the alleged mass killings of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar. A banner of Jamaat-e-Islami is seen clearly in the video. Thereafter,pictures from situations as diverse as an earthquake in Tibet to Thailand were picked up and mischievously circulated as proof of violence against the Muslim community. None of the images in fact pertains to the recent violence in Assam.

Sources said an arrest is likely in Mumbai,where the main culprit was reportedly circulating the fraudulent images. Some other users have been identified in Delhi and Agra,while a textile shop worker was arrested in Coimbatore Sunday for forwarding SMSes on Assam violence to at least a hundred people. An Indian based in Kenya is reportedly also involved.

However,according to sources,law enforcement agencies are finding it extremely difficult to obtain adequate information from Internet companies and social networking websites to go after the culptrits. Most of the offensive content is being circulated through YouTube and blogspot,both owned by Google,and Facebook and Twitter.

This is a clearly a situation of national security. The government expects better cooperation from these companies, a source involved in the screening of these websites said.

While Google and Facebook have provided data to help ascertain the origins of offensive content,some others have not even responded. None of these companies has their servers in India.

A Google spokesperson said the company always complies with valid legal requests from authorities wherever possible to remove offensive content from its websites.

Content intended to incite violence is prohibited on YouTube,and we act quickly to remove such material flagged by our users. YouTubes community guidelines also prohibit things like hate speech,shocking or disturbing content,illegal acts,and graphic violence,and we give our users tools to flag content. We comply with valid legal requests from authorities wherever possible, the spokesperson said.

A Facebook representative said the company was responding to the requests of law-enforcing agencies. Facebook will remove content which breaches our terms as set out in our statement of rights and responsibilities. Content or individuals can be removed from Facebook for a variety of reasons including issuing direct calls for violence or perpetuating hate speech. We have received requests from Indian authorities and agencies and are working through those requests and responding to the agencies. We encourage people to continue to use our tools to report content they are concerned about so that we can investigate and take action fast, a representative said.