Tamil Nadu sets up 5-member team to coordinate with other states to stem migrant attack rumours

The five-member team comprises Avinash Kumar, inspector general of police, administration; Abhishek Dixit, deputy Inspector general of police, headquarters; Harsha Singh, deputy commissioner of police, traffic (Chennai North); Adarsh Pachera, superintendent of police; and D Shanmuga Priya, superintendent of police.

The team will liaise with agencies from other states with regard to the issues related to false propaganda against the North Indian migrant workers in Tamil Nadu.

The Tamil Nadu Police swung into action after a false report about 12 labourers from Bihar being hanged and two videos of clashes wrongly attributed to Tamils attacking Hindi-speaking migrant workers were shared widely on social media a few days ago.

The DGP has asked the unit officers to give immediate counters in Hindi to the social media fake news or fake videos at the earliest.

The state police had been conducting outreach and awareness programmes to ensure the safety of the workers, particularly in areas like Tiruppur, Erode, Coimbatore, and Nilgiris. A separate cell has also been set up to address the grievances of the migrant workers.

Further, the DGP who held meetings with the top officials on the issue had provided a set of guidelines for monitoring the rumours and preventing panic situations regarding the fake attacks on the North Indian migrant workers.

The officers have been told to identify companies and factories that employ migrant labourers and collect details such as their phone numbers, sex, age, and native state.

The DGP had instructed the police personnel to conduct meetings with the workers to assure them that they are safe in Tamil Nadu.

The migrant workforce in every company or factory has been told to nominate one person among them as a point of contact between the Station House officer and them, and further, they would be added to the WhatsApp group created by the Inspector.

Moreover, the DGP has asked the police officers to carry out day and night patrols in the areas where the labourers work and reside to prevent any offences against them.

The inspectors have been directed to patrol the areas near the wine shops to prevent any drunken brawl involving migrant workers and also advise them not to post anything on social media without verifying facts.

In case of receiving any complaint from migrant labourers, the officers were directed to act swiftly and if there is any hospital intimation from the migrant labourers it should be brought to the notice of higher officials immediately, the DGP said in a statement issued Wednesday.

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Earlier, a fact-finding team from Bihar that came to Tamil Nadu following the rumours has expressed full satisfaction with the Tamil Nadu government’s measures taken to protect the workers from other states.