Chennai: Tamil Nadu Director General of Police (DGP) Sylendra Babu has said that videos being circulated on social media showing migrant workers being attacked in the southern state were false.
The top cop also said that action would be taken against those spreading false videos.
“Someone in Bihar has posted a false and mischievous video saying that migrant labourers of Bihar were attacked. Two videos are posted and both are false videos,” Babu said in the video posted on Tamil Nadu Police’s official Twitter handle on Thursday.
“These two incidents happened earlier in Tirupur and Coimbatore and in both cases, they are not clashes between people of Tamil Nadu and migrant workers,” he said in the tweet which tagged the Bihar Chief Minister and the Bihar Police.
One is a clash between two groups of migrant workers and the other is of a clash between locals in Coimbatore, he added. “Facts are twisted to make it appear as if the migrant workers are attacked.”
The video statement came hours after Bihar CM Nitish Kumar spoke about the alleged attacks — which he read in newspapers — on labourers from Bihar in Tamil Nadu.
“I have directed the Chief Secretary and the Director General of Police of Bihar to talk to the officials of the Tamil Nadu Government and ensure the safety of the labourers from Bihar living there,” Nitish tweeted.
Meanwhile, videos of two incidents that took place this year are also being seemingly portrayed as tension between outsiders versus Tamils. One was from in Tirupur on January 14 when a petty issue between a migrant worker and a Tamil man turned into a fistfight.
The other video was from a private college canteen between engineering students and guest workers in Coimbatore that took place on 14 February. RVS Engineering College principal S. Vijayan told reporters that a communication gap due to language problem had resulted in a minor scuffle.
Through social media, the Tamil Nadu Police has reassured the safety of guest workers and has also said that stringent action will be initiated against those who are spreading false news on migrant attacks.
On Friday too, the Tamil Nadu Police flagged a video which it said was incorrectly saying that “Hindi speaking people from Bihar are being assaulted by Tamil speaking people of Tamil Nadu”.
“The District and State Administration are already abreast with such misleading social media posts, videos and Newspaper reports and taking necessary remedial measures,” it said in a series of tweets.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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