Amid rumours of migrant workers from Bihar being attacked in Tamil Nadu, the Bihar Police has made one arrest, and filed a case against several individuals for spreading misleading information on social media.
Jitendra Singh Gangawar, ADG Police Headquarters, said one arrest has been made from Jamui district in connection with fake videos of alleged attacks on migrant workers. "Those who have made the post and shared the post for rumours will be arrested. Police is going to take strict action against them. A 10-member team is doing the investigations," he said at a press conference today.
Four people have been named in the case. The arrested person has been identified as Aman Kumar from Jamui. Police say they found several such videos from his phone.
On reports that a Bihari migrant worker was killed and hung in Tamil Nadu, Mr Gangawar clarified that a suicide case was made to look like a murder. "An old case from Tamil Nadu was made to look like a person from Bihar was killed and hung. There was another video where it was alleged that some Bihari migrants were being beaten by locals. The police officer said it was found that the video was from Bihar-Jharkhand, and had nothing to do with Tamil Nadu.
Mr Gangwar said they have sent preservation notice to Facebook, YouTube, Gmail under which all these service providers are directed to save the links with them for about three months so that thorough investigation is done in case someone deletes it.
The video was made deliberately to sway the public with propaganda, Mr Gangwar further said, adding that there could have been worse situations arising because of this video. "A DSP and 4 members are currently in Tamil Nadu to investigate," he added.
AdvertisementEarlier, Prashant Umrao, an Editor with Dainik Bhaskar, a Patna-based journalist, owner of 'Tanvir Post' Twitter handle Mohammad Tanvir, and Shubam Shukla were booked at different police stations on the charges of spreading "false" news regarding attacks on migrant labourers in Tamil Nadu.
A statewide panic was created among migrant workers in Tamil Nadu after several purported videos, showing attacks on migrant workers, circulated on social media. Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Thursday raised concerns and took note of the purported videos of "attacks".
AdvertisementHowever, Tamil Nadu's Director General of Police Sylendra Babu released a statement, saying that the video doing rounds of social media was "false" and "mischievous".
"Somebody in Bihar posted false and mischievous videos saying that migrant workers were attacked in Tamil Nadu. Two videos were posted. Both are false as these incidents happened at an earlier date in Tiruppur and Coimbatore. One was a clash between two groups of migrant workers from Bihar while another was from a clash between two local residents in Coimbatore," the top cop said.
