BJP Leader and 2 Journalists booked over ‘false’ reports of attacks on migrants in Tamilnadu

way2barak, March 4:  A BJP leader from Uttar Pradesh and two journalists have been booked by the Tamil Nadu Police for “false and baseless” reports online about attacks on North Indian workers in Tamilnadu.

The Bihar government Saturday sent a team to Tamil Nadu to take stock, and Jharkhand said it would be doing so.

In separate complaints, Prashant Umrao, a BJP spokesperson, who also works as a standing counsel in the Supreme Court for the Goa Government, was booked, along with the Dainik Bhaskar editor, and a journalist from Bihar called Mohammed Tanvir. A top police officer said, three separate teams have been formed for their arrest.

A statement issued by the Tamil Nadu government Saturday said that all north Indian workers in Tamil Nadu were living peacefully in the state.

Umrao, who has a large following on Twitter, allegedly tweeted the day after the rally that 12 Bihar workers had been “hanged to death” in Tamil Nadu for speaking Hindi, and posted it with a photo of Tejaswi Yadav with MK Stalin. The police claim the journalists also spread rumours the same day.

All three have been booked under IPC Sections dealing with offences related to promoting enmity and disharmony between different groups.

The police officer quoted, the police were gathering information about other people spreading false rumours “in order to cause trouble and create panic” among migrant labourers.

The officer added: “The rumours began a day after the DMK rally attended by many prominent North Indian leaders. It seems that first a news report regarding this appeared on the Dainik Bhaskar website. It was not published in their print edition but our preliminary probe indicates that it was the trigger. Soon after, Tanvir posted a series of tweets with false stories on attacks by Tamils on North Indian workers, which also included fake news about the murder of 12 people in Tamil Nadu for speaking Hindi. There was panic as the news spread through family WhatsApp groups of migrant workers. Many online and TV news outlets in northern states began airing the story, and the Bihar BJP unit took it up, seemingly in response to Tejashwi’s participation in Stalin’s birthday celebrations”.

As per the officer, “a dozen prominent and verified BJP handles with lakhs of followers have been actively spreading different fake reports on these lines” since the DMK rally was held. Incidentally, BJP leaders in Tamil Nadu have themselves been silent on the issue.

A top government official in Chennai said the delegation from Bihar is holding meetings with the Tamil Nadu Chief Secretary and DGP. The Bihar team is led by its Rural Development Secretary, Balamurugan D, and includes IGP (CID) P Kannan and Alok Kumar, Special Secretary, Labour.

Another senior official said they were keeping a close eye on the situation. “We are taking all necessary steps to inform the workers from other states about the true situation. We are closely monitoring as intelligence reports indicate that the goal of the rumours was to cause an exodus. But, aside from the usual trip by workers to their native states for Holi, there is no sign of such a scenario now,” the official said.