A network of India-based fake Twitter accounts has stocked violence between Muslims and Hindus in the Leicester city of the United Kingdom earlier this year.  

This was disclosed in a research conducted by Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) at Rutgers University in the US State of New Jersey. 

According to the research, an estimated 500 inauthentic accounts that called for violence and promoted memes as well as incendiary videos were created on social networking service Twitter Inc. during riots in Leicester between late August and early September this year.

The research, which was provided to Bloomberg News in the New York City, said that hundreds of people took to the streets in the days following a cricket match between long-held rivals India and Pakistan on 27th of August this year, with some rioters carrying sticks and batons and throwing glass bottles as police were deployed to calm the masses.

The researchers said that many of the Twitter accounts that amplified the unrest originated in India. They said that anti-Muslim sentiment has been rising in majority-Hindu India under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, leading to a narrative that Hindus outside the country, some of whom are not Indian, subscribe to Hindutva, a kind of Hindu nationalism.

According to the Leicestershire police, homes, cars and religious artifacts were vandalized during the clashes, which went on for weeks and resulted in 47 arrests.

Meanwhile, the MP for Leicester East Claudia Webbe talking to Bloomberg News said that the riots were undoubtedly sparked by social media. Although hundreds of police were deployed to areas around the West Midlands to monitor the demonstrations, but she believed most of her constituents within the Hindu and Muslim community had largely been affected “through their phones.”