Despite multiple clarifications by Tamil Nadu police, unrelated, fake and dated videos of assault were passed off as attacks on migrants in Tamil Nadu.
Tamil Nadu DGP Sylendra Babu. (Screengrab)
For days now fake, dated, unrelated and misrepresented videos of assault with false claims that migrants were being attacked and killed in Tamil Nadu have been perpetuated by some Hindi media and several leaders of BJP, especially from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.
The false claims by BJP leaders from Bihar has put the Tamil Nadu BJP led by K Annamalai in a spot.
Despite multiple clarifications from the Tamil Nadu police and fact checks by independent fact-checkers, the misrepresented videos with false claims that migrant workers from Bihar were being “assaulted and even killed” in Tamil Nadu has led to a political slugfest.
Several Hindi media houses like Dainik Bhaskar, ABP Bihar, Punjab Kesari Bihar-Jharkhand, Zee Bihar-Jharkhand used the same unrelated videos, without basic ethics of journalism like verification or cross-checks, to claim that migrants from Bihar were under attack in Tamil Nadu.
The false claims were further perpetuated by politicians, especially from the BJP in Bihar, to put the ruling dispensation under Nitish Kumar and deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav in a spot, given their camaraderie with Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin.
BJP Bihar state unit’s official twitter handle, several people associated with BJP like Saharsa MLA Alok Ranjan, Bihpur MLA Kumar Shailendra, MLC and General Secretary of Bihar BJP Devesh Kumar, Harsiddhi MLA Krishnandan Paswan, and party spokesperson Prashanth Umrao indulged in scaremongering and spreading fake news by sharing the false claims on their social media handles insisting that migrant workers had been killed in Tamil Nadu.
The screenshot of videos they shared were not from Tamil Nadu and neither did they involve migrant workers.
Misrepresented videos of many incidents that happened in Hyderabad, Rajasthan, Karnataka and other parts of the country, some dating back years, which have no connection with migrant workers from Bihar, have been used to attack Tamil Nadu.
Tamil Nadu’s strong resistance against Hindi imposition has been misrepresented as “hate against Hindi speakers”. Groups of Hindi speaking migrants going back to their hometowns on vacation to celebrate Holi has been misrepresented as them “fleeing Tamil Nadu out of fear”.
Tamil Nadu Police on Friday, 3 March, debunked these reports, insisting that people from Bihar were safe and secure in Tamil Nadu.
The police also put out helpline numbers for migrant workers in case of any untoward incident.
In this video, it has been incorrectly claimed that Hindi speaking people from Bihar are being assaulted by Tamil speaking people of Tamilnadu. In fact, in Tamilnadu, migrant workers from other States of India are Safe and Secure. (1/3) https://t.co/jGcVTSnWGN
— Tamil Nadu Police (@tnpoliceoffl) March 3, 2023
However, as videos with false claims continued to go viral and the issue was raised in the Bihar legislative Assembly, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin spoke to his Bihar counterpart Nitish Kumar on Saturday, 4 March, to assure the safety of migrant workers in Tamil Nadu.
Cracking down on fake news, in the meanwhile, Tamil Nadu police have booked the editor of Dainik Bhaskar for allegedly spreading the false narrative that “labourers from Bihar are being killed and attacked in Tamil Nadu for speaking in Hindi”.
Tamil Nadu police also booked BJP spokesperson Prashanth Umrao.
Migrant workers in Tamil Nadu are as safe as in their native states and my government is steadfast in protecting their rights.
I warn of strict action against the Anti-Indian forces spreading hatred with the vile intention of disturbing the peace and harmony of our country. https://t.co/fiPMdzI4C0 pic.twitter.com/RfQSXlZrBS
— M.K.Stalin (@mkstalin) March 4, 2023
As unrelated videos with false claims went viral with mainstream media too peddling them without verification, the Opposition BJP created a ruckus in the Bihar Assembly on Friday. BJP demanded that a delegation of members of the House should be sent to Tamil Nadu to verify reports of attacks on Bihar migrant workers in the state.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, however, decided to send a team of senior state government officials to Tamil Nadu to look into the allegations.
The announcement came after the officials from his government pointed out that the BJP was snowballing the issue because Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav visited Tamil Nadu on a personal invitation from the chief minister of that state.
Yadav, on the other hand, tweeted the video of Tamil Nadu DGP Sylendra Babu assuring that Biharis were safe in Tamil Nadu, claiming that the allegations raised by the BJP were fake are baseless.
बीजेपी, बीजेपी समर्थित मीडिया और इनके नेताओं का तथ्य और सत्य से कोई नाता नहीं है। इनकी झूठ फिर पकड़ी गयी।
भ्रम,झूठ,नफ़रत,हिंसा और अफवाह फैलाना ही भाजपाइयों का मुख्य धंधा और पूँजी है। किसी भी देशहितैषी व्यक्ति को समाज में द्वैष व भ्रम नहीं फैलाना चाहिए।pic.twitter.com/asmy0QFXoL
— Tejashwi Yadav (@yadavtejashwi) March 2, 2023
Tamil Nadu is witnessing a hot debate regarding the safety of the Hindi-speaking migrant workers after BJP Tamil Nadu chief K Annamalai tweeted, accusing the ruling DMK that the fake news arose because of them making comments against the Hindi-speaking people from other states as “Panipuri walas”.
DMK’s MPs' vile comments on North Indians, DMK minister calling them Panipuri wala, and their alliance partners demanding their exodus have triggered what we see today.
The people, the Government & the Police, do not endorse the views of DMK & their alliance partners. (4/5)
— K.Annamalai (மோடியின் குடும்பம்) (@annamalai_k) March 4, 2023
Speaking to South First, DMK student wing head Rajeev Gandhi said that the reports of attacks against migrant workers from Bihar getting assaulted in Tamil Nadu were baseless.
“The videos that were circulated were showing some personal issues, and they cannot be taken into account for the whole state. We Tamil people never discriminate against anyone on the basis of their region or language,” Gandhi said.
“The DMK never branded anyone as panipuri walas or any other things. We are against the policy that only people knowing Hindi can get Central government jobs. So Annamalai claimed that people knowing Hindi can get jobs easily. We were speaking against Annamalai’s statement”, Gandhi told South First, countering Annamalai’s allegation.
“We asked him if people knowing Hindi can easily get jobs, then why were they selling panipuris in Tamil Nadu. He twisted that statement for political gains,” he added.
Gandhi said the issue is being used by the BJP to weaken the friendship between the Bihar government and the Tamil Nadu government.
“They are doing this only because Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav spoke against the BJP while attending a DMK function in Tamil Nadu,” he added.
Meanwhile, the BJP’s Tamil Nadu vice president Narayanan Thirupathy claimed that the news reports that portrayed Hindi-speaking people in Tamil Nadu were getting attacked are baseless.
However, he claimed that the issue snowballed because of the fringe elements in the DMK alliance.
“The reports that came out were all fake. Tamil people would never commit such crimes against other language-speaking people. The issue arose because some fringe elements in the DMK alliance claimed that north Indians were flooding Tamil Nadu. The government should have controlled them earlier,” Thirupati told South First.
On being asked whether the national leaders of BJP, including those in Bihar, were made known by the Tamil Nadu unit that the reports are fake, he said: “The issue is now between two states, the police, and the government have put out statements about the issue. However, we will be assuring them that people from Bihar are safe in Tamil Nadu.”
He also said, “Even I have seen the videos being circulated in social media; they are not from Tamil Nadu, they are from elsewhere.”
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