Indian protesters mob Indian Nokia Store, set phones on fire

The world’s largest mobile phone manufacturer is under fire, literally, for a mapping mishap that caused a patriotic uprising from members of India’s Bharatiya Janata Party.

The latest release of Nokia Maps, the company’s own GPS-enabled navigational mapping application, apparently contained some inaccurate information. Nokia Maps listed Kashmir as being part of Pakistan – an insult of sorts to members of the BJP.

A youthful congregation from the BJP raided a Nokia Store in Jabalpur City, grabbing Nokia handsets and setting them on fire. The attack is seen as a protest of Nokia’s mis-information and highlights the BJP’s sensitivity on Pakistani matters. One BJP organizer said that the Nokia Maps mistake was “a case of anti-nationalism. We demanded that the Nokia and other people involved in the conspiracy be booked for spreading anti-national activities. We will intensify the protest if this case has not been registered.”

Surprisingly, the shop owner was fairly accepting of the BJP’s protest method. “This is the problem of Nokia and we are not concerned with it as we are merely shop owners, not the client of the company. But, the manner in which the mob entered and started torching the shop is bad,” said Rafiq Khan, the Nokia Store owner.

[Via: MobileCrunch]

About The Author

Will Park

Will hails from The City of Angels - Los Angeles, California. He spends his time playing with his numerous gadgets and looking forward to seeing what future holds for mobile technology. An avid promoter of a fully "digital" life, he promotes the widespread adoption of truly mobile, paper-less living. He dreams of the day when he can go completely digital. No more snail mail, paper receipts, bound books, notepads/spiral notebooks, credit cards, hard currency. He's a digital warrior - fighting for the converged life. He is an idealist and a realist - he has a perfect view of what the world should be but knows that the world is not perfect. Can we ever hope to see Will's dream become reality? We'll see...

Roy

Un-fraking-believable how ignorant people are. It was a mistake so instead of simply complaining they torch a store and destroy merchandise. The shop owner is an idiot for his complacency. I guess the rule of law really means nothing outside of the United States. Thank god I live here.
Ravi

@Roy

“It was a mistake so instead of simply complaining they torch a store and destroy merchandise. The shop owner is an idiot for his complacency.” <– Agreed. Absolutely true.

“I guess the rule of law really means nothing outside of the United States.” <– Un-fraking-true. Rule of law should have been able to contain random acts of violence observed in your schools and colleges, if not multi billion dollar scandals that go on for decades.

“Thank god I live here.” <– Yeah, good for us.
Aryan

Kashmir is a very sensitive subject, especially because hundreds of thousands of Hindus were forced to move from their ancestral properties and ethnically cleansed during a genocide of Muslims from Pakistan. The Muslims were not even native to the land.

The mistake that Nokia, or Navteq made is akin to a company is akin to someone saying that the world trade center attacks were ‘okay.’ That would cause a lot of people, even here in the U.S. to be pretty damn pissed, maybe to the point of attacking a shopowner who was somehow affiliated with the company.
Gopalaz

hi guys,
ur residents of US of Indian origin. I do accept rule of law and complacency, but, including kashmir in pakistan’s territory in nokia maps is very unfair. Nokia is the most popular brand in India and it has 70% of Indian market with wide price range from Rs. 1000 to Rs. 50000/-. Indians have respected and embraced nokia to the highest level. But Nokia has betrayed India putting the state of Kashmir as being part of Pakistan’s territory in nokia maps!!!!! This is injustice to Indians !!! Nokia should say public apology to Indians through all the forms of media and it should immediately change the map !!!!!!!!!!!!!! If this does not happen, all Indian should destroy their Nokia phones and nokia should be banned in India !!!!!!!!!!!! Jai Hind !!!!!!!
Last but not the least, all NRIs should accept that their origin is India . Please respect India. Jai Hind again !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Muhammad Amir Kiani

Hello if its mistake then why people are distorting there mobile in India and why they are firing Nokia mobile store?

Second why media and all world only write Muslim Extremist do that or do this. propagate these type of things every day. i did not see any news where western media talk about it.

Kashmir is one of the core issue of south Asia but no body taking interest in this issue because they don’t wanna see us structured.

Kashmiri’s Fighting for there independence since the partition, giving there life’s but no one come on front to resolve this issue. i have too many truth but i dont know the moderator approved my comment or not