All these sites, including Facebook, Google and Twitter were found hosting inflammatory and hateful content, spreading rumours and inciting violence targeting the people from north-east

New Delhi: Stepping up its drive against 'erring' portals, government of India has ordered blocking of more than 250 websites in which morphed images and videos were uploaded to incite Muslims leading to exodus of people belonging to the northeast from Karnataka and some other states, reports PTI.

Home ministry officials said more than 130 websites have been blocked till now while the rest will be blocked shortly. "We are planning to block some more sites," an official said.

Government is also contemplating to take up the CERT-In (Computer Emergency Response Team-India) findings at the international forum as it has turned out to be the biggest instance of cyber warfare on India in recent times.

All these sites were found hosting inflammatory and hateful content, spreading rumours and inciting violence targeting the people from north-east, government sources said.

On Saturday, the government had issued instructions to block 76 Internet sites, which included web-pages and some websites, and had said that bulk of the rumours that triggered panic among people of North-eastern states in Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra were sourced from Pakistan.

"We have found inflammatory and objectionable contents on some pages of Facebook and Google. Some user-accounts at Twitter were also found spreading similar contents. All together, around 80 such pages and accounts have been ordered to be blocked today," the sources said.

The rumours about a possible attacks have led to mass exodus of people from northeast from many places including Bangalore, Chennai, Mumbai and Pune.

India's Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde on Sunday asked his Pakistani counterpart Rehman Malik to crackdown on elements based in that country that were using social media networking sites to whip up communal sentiments and spreading hate in India.

According to a report prepared by the Home Ministry, a Pakistan-based hardliners group is suspected to have been involved in doctoring images and spreading them across social networking sites to create panic among people of north-eastern region living across India.

Most of the online content started getting posted from 13th July and fake profiles were created for spreading morphed pictures, according to a Home Ministry report prepared in the wake of mass exodus of people belonging to the north east from Bangalore, Pune, Chennai and Mumbai following rumours about possible attack on them.