NE exodus: 'Suspected foreign hand behind rumours'

Guwahati: Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi on Saturday said he suspected from the very beginning that foreign forces were behind the rumours which forced thousands of people of northeast to flee Karnataka and some other cities.

"I was saying from the very beginning that foreign forces were behind this," he said shortly after Union Home Secretary said in Delhi that bulk of the rumours were sourced from Pakistan.

Gogoi said the state intelligence had inputs about this. "I had this suspicion all along," he told a news channel, adding that it was apparent that a "big plan" on it was being worked upon for quite some time.