NEW DELHI/GUWAHATI: Indian’s home secretary has accused websites in Pakistan of spreading false rumors that caused thousands of people from India’s remote northeast to panic and flee the southern city of Bangalore. They feared they would be attacked in retaliation for ethnic violence in their home state.

More than 30,000 people from the northeast, many of whom migrated to cities for work, boarded trains provided by Indian Railways in the past week to reach the northeast, media reports say.

At least two of the panicking northeast Indians died and nine others were injured after being pushed from a moving train in the state of Assam on Sunday, an Indian Railways official said, raising the prospect of more communal clashes.

The incident happened near the Jalpaiguri railway station in the northern part of the state of West Bengal, close to Assam, the official said.

“Two persons died, four are critically wounded and five suffered minor injuries,” the Indian Railways official said, declining to be named as he was not authorized to speak to the media.

Home Secretary R.K. Singh told reporters late Saturday that investigators had found that most of the websites used images of people killed in cyclones and earthquakes and passed them off as Muslims killed in violence earlier this year to spread fear of revenge attacks. He said most of the images were uploaded from Pakistan. The sites have now been blocked.

Singh said India would discuss the matter with officials in Pakistan but gave no other details about the websites. The two countries routinely blame each other for fomenting domestic strife.

Pakistan denied the allegations.

“We totally reject the allegations in this report,” a statement by Pakistan government on Sunday said.

“We find these allegations baseless and unfounded. Such unsubstantiated and irresponsible statements will not help create the conducive environment we wish to create.”

The exodus from Bangalore followed clashes in Assam state in recent weeks between ethnic Bodos and Muslims settlers that killed more than 50 people and displaced 400,000 others. Those fleeing Bangalore said they had heard text messages had been circulating threatening retaliatory attacks by Muslims.

Decades of ethnic violence have forced hundreds of thousands of young people from the northeast to move away in search of education and jobs. They find work mostly in the service sector in big cities, working in restaurants, shops and airlines.

The recent rioting in Assam mainly involved land rights. It has largely been brought under control, although sporadic outbreaks have occurred in the past week.

The Bodos and Muslim settlers, who mostly came from the former East Pakistan before it became Bangladesh in 1971, have clashed repeatedly over the years but the recent violence is the worst since the mid-1990s.

Ringed by China, Myanmar, Bangladesh and Bhutan, India’s northeast is home to more than 200 ethnic and tribal groups. Their facial features make them stand out in other states and many migrants from the region are considered Chinese or Nepali.