Amid attack rumours,Assamese flee Bangalore

The hundreds of Assamese at the station,mostly young men in their 20s and a handful of families,were leaving construction,security,retail and office administration jobs after the panic apparently triggered by word of mouth over the last few days.

Several of the youth and a few older people approached for comments were initially wary about revealing the reasons for the exodus and opened up only after being assured that there was no ill-will against them.

“There have been attacks on people from Assam and the northeast in different parts of India. People are saying that there will be attacks in Bangalore as well after Ramzan. There were reports of some people from Assam being troubled in one part of Bangalore. We want to go back to our families,” said Ranjith,22,who worked at a retail outlet after arriving in the city about a year ago.

“We have spread the word among all our friends. It may be rumours but we don’t want to take a risk. We want to be with our families in Assam at such a time. We will see the situation for a while and decide if we want to come back,” said Ripen,21,a friend and colleague of Ranjith.

Some at the station claimed that the government of Assam had sent out a message asking all Assamese to return” “Our government has asked us to return. Our employers and landlords in Bangalore have suggested we go back if we apprehend danger,” said Mitra Lal Upadhyay,a security labour contractor who claimed he was sending back 40 boys back to Assam as they feared for their lives.

“Incidents have happened in Hyderabad,they have happened in Pune. People are going around inquiring about the region of origin of inhabitants in parts of Bangalore inhabited by people from the northeast. When an incident happens there will be no one to protect us,” Upadhyay said.

An office boy and security guard at a private firm for the last nine years,Jayanth,27,said he was going back because his family was panicking over news of attacks on Assamese people in different parts of the country and the violence in Mumbai was a factor as well.

S Raghu,a private security agency owner,said he had lost all 35 of his Assamese employees in the last two days.

Some employees referred to direct threats of violence after Ramzan being made to them,others referred to an alleged video of a brutal attack in Assam being circulated among Muslims for which reprisals are being planned,while still others referred to alleged warnings from the police itself.

The Bangalore police however claimed they had not initiated any measure asking people from the northeast to move out of the city. The police seemed unaware of the situation until senior state intelligence officials visited the railway station. “People from Assam are going back home for the festival period,that is why they are present in large numbers,” a police official at the railway station said.