The Tamil Nadu police on Saturday booked three people including an editor of the Dainik Bhaskar in Bihar for spreading fake news on migrant workers being attacked in Tamil Nadu. On Friday, several videos of Hindi speaking migrant workers being brutally thrashed went viral from Twitter handles in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.
As panic began spreading across Tamil Nadu, especially in districts like Coimbatore, Tiruppur and Chennai, where there is a huge number of migrant workers, employed across industries like garment, textile and construction, Tamil Nadu government denied the reports. But when the issue was escalated by the BJP in the Bihar Assembly, the Nitish Kumar government on Saturday sent a team to Chennai to check on the safety of the migrant workers. The Jharkhand government is also likely to follow the same.
“Those spreading rumours on the attack against migrant labourers are against the harmony of India. The social media posts aimed at doing cheap politics are highly condemnable. Tamil Nadu government and people will stand to protect our migrant brothers,” chief minister MK Stalin said in a statement. He also assured Nitish Kumar that the migrant workers from Bihar are same in Tamil Nadu over a phone call. On the other side, the delegation from Bihar had held meetings with the top officials including the Head of Police Force (HoPF) Sylendra Babu and Chief secretary V. IraiAnbu. The Bihar team includes its Rural Development Secretary, Balamurugan D, and includes IGP (CID) P Kannan and Alok Kumar, Special Secretary, Labour.
Following this on Saturday, three people from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar have been booked by the Tamil Nadu police under IPS 153 (A), 596 (i)(b), 153 (b), 505 (ii)(b) and IT 56 (D) based on three separate complaints. Prashant Patel Umrao, a BJP spokesperson from Uttar Pradesh who works as the Standing Counsel in the supreme Court for the Goa government, an unnamed editor of Dainik Bhaskar from Bihar and a small-time journalist Mohammed Tanvir from Bihar have been booked under the Information Technology Act for spreading fake news and offences relating to promoting enmity and disharmony.
The editor of Dainik Bhaskar has been booked under IPC sections 153 (A) and 505 (I) (B). The case is registered in Thirumuruganpoondi Police Station. The Cyber Crime Unit of Tiruppur Police registered a case against Mohammed Tanvir who owns Tanvir under sections 153 (B), 505 (II) (B) of IPC and 56 (D) of the Information Technology Act. The Thoothukudi district police have registered a case under sections 153, 153 A, 504, 505(1) (B), 505 (1) (C) and 505(2) against Prashant Patel Umrao. “Special teams have been formed and the teams have already left to arrest them,” a senior police officer told The Week.
Despite clarification by the Tamil Nadu police and the government that Bihar migrant workers are safe in the state, the fake videos and news reports were spreading like wild fire on WhatsApp and social media websites. The spread of the false news has been alarming that the collectors in the western districts like Tiruppur and Coimbatore which have the highest number of migrant workers had to visit the workers and ensure safety by talking to them in Hindi. Incidentally, a separate team also has been formed by the government to allay their fears. The Tamil Nadu police have also shared helpline numbers for the migrant labours to call if they face any issue.
Tamil Nadu being one of the most urbanised and industrialised state in India has the largest number of migrant workers. These workers come from West Bengal, Odisha, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Assam and Tripura. The largest number comes from Odisha, Bihar and West Bengal while there are also workers from Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.
The misinformation was spread a day after Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Tejaswi Yadav flew down to Chennai in a chartered flight to participate in a political rally on Stalin’s 70th birthday. It was when the non-BJP leaders along with Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge gave a clarion call for opposition unity.
The politics behind the fake videos
Apparently there seems to be a strong political connotation to the issue. On March 1, Tejaswi Yadav rushed to the sprawling YMCA grounds in Chennai at the last moment, when Stalin’s birthday event was almost nearing the end. Tejaswi also insisted that the opposition parties despite their differences should come together in the ensuing 2024 Parliament elections to defeat the BJP.
During the public rally, apart from Tejashwi, other leaders like Farooq Abdullah and Akhilesh Yadav too insisted that opposition parties and the non-BJP parties come together. Speaking at the rally, Stalin said that a third-front without the Congress is pointless and will not reach the shores.
A day after the meeting, when the media asked Stalin if he is getting ready to national politics, Stalin replied, “I am already in national politics. Whatever I had to say I told yesterday.” In fact, DMK party insiders point out at the larger role Stalin is planning to play like his father Karunanidhi who was one of the forces behind the third-front governments under I.K. Gujral and HD Deve Gowda. “Our leader Stalin wants to be a national doyen bringing together all the opposition parties under one umbrella. This has sent alarm bells ringing in the BJP circles,” says Saravanan Annadurai, DMK spokesperson.
Stalin’s effort to bring together the opposition, unlike his father, if proves to be successful could unseat the BJP at the Centre. Though leaders like Mamata Banerjee or K. ChandraSekara Rao or Arvind Kejriwal have their own differences with the Congress, they are friends with Stalin. His camaraderie with leaders like Pinarayi Vijayan, Uddhav Thackeray and Sharad Pawar has now pushed him to be a sort of a coordinator of the UPA like his father. Apparently, the DMK is the only political party which is solidly backing the Congress, while others have decimated the Congress in their own states.
Political observers in Tamil Nadu say that the BJP, which has been facing opposition at the national level after the release of the BBC documentary, the Hindenburg report against the Adanis and the success of the Bharat Jodo Yatra, doesn’t want a solid front opposing the BJP at the national level in the ensuing 2024 polls. They point to the fact that the BJP wants to clip Stalin’s wings politically before his call for opposition unity gets life.
In fact, hours after Stalin's birthday function got over in Chennai, Mohameed Tanvir wrote in his newspaper and on Twitter that migrant labourers were attacked are Tamil Nadu. The videos he shared then spread to the family WhatsApp groups of the Bihari workers and was later picked up by the television channels in Bihar. The Bihar unit of BJP in the state assembly raised questions, “Why Tejaswi, after eating the cake, spoke in favour of Tamil Nadu which is against Bihar and the Biharis?”
