India on Thursday imposed a ban on bulk text messages and multi-media messages for a 15-day period to curb Assam-related rumours, after thousands of people of northeast origin fled cities such as Bangalore, Pune, Hyderaband, Chennai, Mysore amongst others fearing attacks.
"We have banned bulk SMSes and MMSes for 15 days," Union home secretary RK Singh told reporters. It is learnt that the home Ministry has also ordered online surveillance of social media and blogs to prevent these platforms from being misused to spread rumours.
The ban will prevent cellphone from sending text messages to more than five people at a time. The restriction has been imposed keeping in mind the security scenario, said a notice issued by the security wing of the telecoms department (DoT).
But the restriction does not apply to data based messaging services like WhatsApp and BlackBerry Messenger (BBM).
In July more than 75 people were killed in ethnic violence in Assam. Over the last few days, fake or doctored text messages had been doing the rounds in several cities in South India, especially Bangalore, warning that people of northeast origin would be attacked after Eid (20th August) to avenge the violence in Assam. It is estimated that several hundreds of thousands of people from the North East region work across the four Southern states and Maharashtra.
Ban on bulk text messages and multi-media messages for 15 days - The Economic Times