Will give Pak proof of web hate: India

An official source said Google and Facebook had told the government that most web pages and links that it had blocked were outside “Indian jurisdiction”,meaning their content had been uploaded from outside India. According to this source,Facebook has confirmed that every such link,barring two,had originated outside the country.

Twitter was yet to respond to Indian requests to pull out offensive content,the government said.

The government Monday ordered the blocking of 89 more web pages and user accounts,taking the total number of pages blocked to 245. One person in Maharashtra and three in Bangalore have been arrested for spreading rumours that triggered panic among people from the Northeast. Police were looking for four other offenders in Bangalore and one in Maharashtra,home ministry sources said. Some people in Delhi,Agra and Mumbai were also under watch,they said.

A team of senior officials from several ministries will visit relief camps in Assam beginning tomorrow.

‘They surrounded us,said get out or we will throw you out’

Those injured in the scuffle on a special train from Bangalore on Saturday night which left at least four dead talk of a night of horror — of being mobbed,assaulted,looted,prevented from seeking help,and finally being thrown off.

The condition of three of the six injured,all from Assam,was “extremely critical”,a senior health official said. An injured youth from Malda district was released on bond and taken home by his family.

The dead included three youths from Assam and one from Manipur. All the deceased were in their early 20s.

While three of the injured were taken to North Bengal Medical College and Hospital in Siliguri,those seriously injured were moved to a private hospital nearby.

There were reports of two more youths from Assam dying after falling off one of the three special trains that reached Guwahati on Monday morning. However,Assam Home Secretary G D Tripathi said their deaths were accidental,and were not related to any scuffle.

While one of the bodies was recovered from near Burdwan in West Bengal,the other was found near Kishanganj in Bihar. Both the youths used to work as security guards in Bangalore.

Among those injured in Saturday’s scuffle was a 22-year-old from Assam’s Hailakandi district who worked as a security guard at an office in Bangalore. He was allegedly pushed out along with the others near Belakoba,a few kilometres from New Jalpaiguri railway station,and suffered injuries all over his body.

The unreserved compartment was overcrowded right from the start,he said,tears running down his eyes. “After the train left Bhubaneswar,a group of more than hundred surrounded us. They started enquiring about our home and identities. They asked me why we had left Bangalore. They cautioned us against travelling to Assam. With folded hands,I told them that my two sisters and parents were waiting for me,that I was going to join them.”

He said they had found some space near the toilet and were sitting there when some unruly members in the crowd kicked them while entering the toilet. “We were so scared that we kept quiet. They started abusing and teasing us. We didn’t respond. Things changed after the train left Howrah. They threatened us,saying that if we did not get down from the train within two hours,they would start throwing us out.”

After crossing Malda,as it turned dark,the crowd reportedly became more violent. “They started beating us. I had a mobile phone and Rs 5,000 in cash. They looted all my belongings. Some youths,who boarded the train perhaps from Bangalore,tried to get down at Malda,but were not allowed by the miscreants,” he said.

After the train reached New Jalpaiguri,some of those who were attacked tried to contact the Railway Protection Force and police officials. But they were not allowed to get down from the train.

The attacks continued,said the Hailakandi youth. “We thought they would leave us after looting our belongings,but we were wrong. Finally,they started throwing us out of the train one by one. I landed on a bush beside the railway track.”

The youth said he walked a long distance to the New Jalpaiguri station for help,from where he was taken to the hospital.

His friend,also from Hailakandi district,suffered serious injuries to his spinal cord and shoulder. He said there were no signs of any trouble at the beginning and insisted there had been no provocation from their side.

The friend also said that while the coach,with a capacity for 70-75,had at least 200 passengers,there was no security guard for the entire journey. “The miscreants looted Rs 2,500 and a mobile phone from me before throwing me out of the train. The torture on us continued for several hours but no one came to our rescue.”

Undergoing treatment in the special observation ward,another of those injured had a similar story. “Not only was I beaten up,the criminals abused me. We were punished for no reason,” he said. His biggest worry was that his family members would not have got any information of his whereabouts and would be worried.

While a team from Guwahati took away the bodies of the victims,hospital sources said five of the injured were also sent to Assam by train late on Monday evening.

“They were discharged and handed over to a team from Assam which included a doctor. The Bengal government gave permission after requests from the Assam government,’’ said a senior official. (Names of the dead and injured have been withheld.)

In July,Pak blogger warned of ‘fake’ images

MORE than a month before the unrest began,a Pakistan-based cyber security expert and avid blogger,Faraz Ahmed,31,had warned netizens that the images being circulated on many social networking sites of the alleged atrocities against Muslims were “fake and morphed”.

On July 14,Ahmed had blogged that the images on most of these websites were of victims of natural disasters.

Speaking to The Indian Express over the phone,Ahmed,who is based in Karachi,said he began researching the Myanmar violence after he came across these images on social networking sites. “Some looked similar to those I had seen in news clips. I did some research and found that most of the images were doctored,” he said.

Ahmed cited the example of a photograph of some Buddhist monks standing next to some bodies,which had been put up by some sites as victims of atrocities against Muslims. He pointed out that the photograph was in fact of Tibetan monks helping Chinese authorities bury earthquake victims in 2010.

“While I do not deny that there is a problem and that people are being killed,I have found that 95 per cent of the images are doctored and about 98 per cent are fake and morphed,” he said.