Stalin rejects rumours of targeted violence against migrant workers, assures CM Nitish of their safety
Tamil Nadu chief minister MK Stalin on Saturday rejected allegations of targeted violence on migrant workers in the state, warning of swift action against rumour-mongers spreading panic, and reassured his Bihar counterpart Nitish Kumar that no harm would befall workers.
“All workers are our workers who help Tamil Nadu’s growth and nothing will happen to impact them, I have assured him,” Stalin, who spoke to Nitish Kumar over phone, said in a statement.
He further said that workers from northern states need not have any kind of apprehensions over working in Tamil Nadu. In the unlikely event of somebody intimidating them, Stalin added, they may inform police, who would take immediate action.
Stalin’s reassurance to Nitish Kumar, whom he addressed as his “revered brother”, came in the backdrop of false allegations on social media that migrant workers, especially from Bihari, were attacked in Tamil Nadu for speaking in Hindi. The issue rocked the Bihar assembly on Friday, with leaders of the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) stalling the proceedings claiming Bihari workers were being targeted for speaking Hindi in Tamil Nadu.
In Bihar, images of workers returning from southern states for Holi were being circulated with misleading messages of a mass exodus. In the past few days, the purported videos of workers being beaten circulated on social media were found to be fake and from other states.
Stalin said some incidents that happened outside of Tamil Nadu were spread by falsely claiming to have taken place in the southern state. The chief minister also asserted that “stern legal action” would be taken against those spreading panic through rumours. “Those spreading rumours that workers from other states are being attacked in Tamil Nadu are against the Indian nation, they infringe the national integrity,” he said in the statement. “Some doing cheap politics over a non-issue is condemnable.”
On March 2, Bihar CM Nitish Kumar and his Jharkhand counterpart Hemant Soren asked officials to look into alleged reports of attacks on migrant workers in Tamil Nadu.
Every claim of the attack will be verified, Kumar told reporters on Saturday. “We have sent our officers to Tamil Nadu to verify. I have spoken to the chief minister (Stalin),” he said.
Meanwhile, the Tamil Nadu police on Saturday booked a BJP spokesperson from Uttar Pradesh, Prashant Umrao, for promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion and language under Section 153A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). “A team has been sent (to Uttar Pradesh) to arrest Umrao,” said a senior Tamil Nadu police officer, requesting anonymity.
Umrao on Friday shared a photo of Bihar deputy chief minister Tejashwi Prasad Yadav and Stalin in a tweet, that claimed: “…12 migrants from Bihar were hung to death in Tamil Nadu for speaking in Hindi.”
He later deleted his tweet. Yadav was in Chennai last week to celebrate Stalin’s 70th birthday.
Police have also booked the editor of a local new portal for spreading enmity, officers said. The online portal had filed a story sharing purported videos, claiming them to be of Bihar workers being targeted in Tamil Nadu. However, a fact-checking team said the videos were old and not from Tamil Nadu.
District collectors in Tamil Nadu have issued appeals in Hindi, asking migrant workers to not be scared.
Tamil Nadu director general of police (DGP) Sylendra Babu confirmed that first information reports (FIRs) have been registered against five people so far.
“We will arrest individuals and in the case of institutions such as a newspaper we will issue summons to the editor…,” said Babu, who had earlier refuted allegations of attacks on Bihari migrants and dubbed two videos purportedly showing attacks on workers as “false and malicious”.
He added: “We have also reached out to large scale employers of migrant workers such as construction companies and Tirupur cluster, and have convinced them that this is fake news. We have given our numbers in their WhatsApp groups to help them reach out to us. A lot of them are on their way home for Holi so we have made arrangements for them in the railway stations.”
