Indian leaders appealed for calm on Friday as natives of northeastern India now living in southern cities left in droves for a third day over fears that violence in the northeastern state of Assam would spread south.
Starting Wednesday night, thousands of northeast natives who had migrated to the south - especially those from Assam - began heading to train stations in Bangalore, Chennai and Pune. Many had received text messages warning them that they would be targeted for revenge by Muslim groups angry about the situation in Assam, where fighting between the mostly Hindu Bodo tribe and Muslims has displaced more than 300,000 people. Their fears were heightened by the killings of several northeastern migrants in Pune in the last week and a protest by Muslim groups that devolved into a riot in Mumbai on Sunday.
Tensions were still elevated on Friday, but there were some hopeful signs. An India Railway official, who was not authorized to speak publicly, said the crush of passengers in Bangalore, Chennai and elsewhere had ebbed and the railways did not expect to arrange special trains and extra cars to transport passengers to Assam, as it did on Thursday. Also, community leaders and students in Delhi and Mumbai said migrants from the northeast in those cities were not rushing back home.
Speaking in the upper house of Parliament on Friday morning, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh promised to protect people from the northeast. “I want this house to send a message loud and clear to all the northeast people that our people are one, and we will do everything to provide peace and security to all the people of northeast in whichever part of the country they are living,†he said.
The exodus appeared to subside somewhat on Friday, but the assurances did not appear to have convinced everybody. The Press Trust of India reported that northeastern migrants from cities of the Mysore, Mangalore and Kodagu, in Karnataka State, were arriving in Bangalore on Friday to catch trains to Assam.
Many young people from India's seven northeastern states, where literacy rates are often higher but job opportunities fewer than in cities like Bangalore, often move to study and work. While restaurants, airlines and other service businesses frequently seek to recruit them because of their English-language skills, many northeast natives suffer insults and prejudice because many of them have facial features more common in East Asia and because many are not native speakers of Hindi or south Indian languages.
In Pune, a senior police official said the situation was largely calm on Friday. “Yesterday, according to the railway authorities' estimates, 600 to 700 people from the northeast left Pune,†said Sanjeev Singhal, an assistant police commissioner, who added that the police had met with students from the northeast, religious leaders a nd government officials. “Today there have been no reports of people leaving the city.â€
At Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, Chayanika Priyam, 23, a native of Assam, said she and her friends were staying put. She said an acquaintance had left Bangalore overnight and was now staying in Delhi. “We are not giving in to the rumors, and there is nothing to fear,†she said.
The situation was also calm in Mumbai, according to a leader of the city's large Assamese community who called on the government to offer quick and credible assurances to maintain the peace.
“These apprehensions and rumors should be taken out from the minds of people because this does not do any good to the situation,†said Paban K. Kataky, president of the Assam Association of Mumbai. “People in Mumbai, luckily, are not leaving so far, and we hope nothing will happen. People should keep calm and quiet and let the government take steps to control the situation.â€
H ari Kumar, Neha Thirani and Pamposh Raina contributed reporting.
