Another Fake Migrant Attack Video Emerges with Band-Aid on 'Laughing' Man's Face; TN Cops React

The Tamil Nadu police has identified a video about alleged attacks on migrant workers, tweeted by a Bihar journalist, as fake. This comes amid apprehensions among the migrant workforce over circulation of alleged bogus videos of assault on some of them in the state.

The police officers warned of legal action against journalist Manish Kasyap, who identifies himself as a “public figure” and a “journalist” on the microblogging website.

The video shows men with Band-Aid on their faces and talking about how they returned home after being attacked. One of the men even laughed before talking.

Stating that the incident did not happen in their state, the Tamil Nadu police tweeted, “You can’t cheat everyone, every time. Please see this video. This incident (did) not happen in Tamil Nadu. It is purely a scripted one. Please verify the fact and tweet. Stern legal action follows.”

Tagging Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar and deputy CM Tejashwi Yadav in the tweet, Kasyap attacked the leaders for “lying” to the people of Bihar as they had said no such attacks have happened. He also tagged Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the same tweet.

Case 2: Jharkhand Man Confesses He Created Fake Video

Two days ago, the Tamil Nadu police had pointed out a video created by migrant worker from Jharkhand and his friends to “gain popularity and create unrest among the migrant workforce” by falsely claiming they were being beaten up by the local residents.

The migrant worker, identified as one Manoj Yadav, and his friends released a video of them requesting the state governments of Tamil Nadu and Jharkhand to help them return to their native place, the policemen said.

“Tambaram city police investigated into this and found out, this video was created by Manoj Yadav for gaining popularity and to create unrest among the migrant workers,” they tweeted. Manoj Yadav was arrested and remanded to judicial custody.

Tamil Nadu police also released a confession video of Yadav in which he can be heard saying, “I and my friends put out a false video. I have been living in Tamil Nadu for 25 years and have not faced any problem. Food, lodging everything is available. My friends put out the video for gaining popularity. These are all lies.”

Tamil Nadu has more than 600,000 migrant workers with the maximum number being from Odisha, Bihar and Assam. The state police have issued guidelines on how to bust rumours about attacks on migrant workers in the state.

According to reports, the police will name five senior officers to coordinate with law enforcement agencies and other states over rumours, propaganda and disinformation. A worker in every company will be nominated as a liaison and the person will be added on the police’s official WhatsApp group for sharing information.

12 FIRs Filed

As many as 12 FIRs were filed recently against individuals and institutions, including the Bharatiya Janata Party, in connection with the “targeted misinformation” that there was violence against migrant labourers.

“We have filed 12 FIRs so far. Ninety per cent of the misinformation has died down but we are continuing to fight fire. Even now vested interests are continuing to share a fake narrative. We don’t know yet if it is an orchestrated drama,” Tamil Nadu’s Director General of Police Sylendra Babu said.

The 12 FIRs include cases against Tamil Nadu BJP president K Annamalai, the Twitter handle of the BJP’s Bihar unit @BJP4Bihar, BJP spokesperson Prashant Umrao and Dainik Bhaskar newspaper’s editor, Mohammed Tanveer.

Tamil Nadu CM Reaches Out to Migrants

Tamil Nadu CM M K Stalin on Tuesday reached out to the migrant workers community in the state. Stalin visited Tirunelveli’s Kanam Latex, involved in making hand gloves, in the district and interacted with the migrant workers, enquiring about their well-being, an official release said.

He discussed with them matters like how long they were staying in Tamil Nadu, if the local people treated them well and whether they had to face any issues.

“The CM asked them not to fall for rumours and that the state government was providing workers from all states a safe work environment,” the release said.

Meanwhile, a four-member Bihar government delegation met officials and workers in Chennai and expressed satisfaction over the state government’s actions after the alleged fake videos emerged. The team had earlier travelled to Tirupur and Coimbatore, both of which employ a large number of migrant labourers.

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