stalin rejects rumours of targeted violence against migrant workers

New DeLhi/cheNNAi: Tamil

Nadu chief minister MK Stalin on Saturday rejected allegations of targeted violence on migrant workers in the state, warning of swift action against rumourmongers spreading panic, and reassured his Bihar counterpart Nitish Kumar that no harm would befall workers.

POintinG to the fact that how technology is moulding the way of going forward, Foreign Secretary Vinay Mohan Kwatra said that the question emerges whether the society is based on economic model or it is open to embracing technology openly.

Foreign Secretary Vinay Mohan Kwatra on Saturday said that the Chinese applications were banned in India to stop the spread of misinformation, the spread of disinformation, and fake information.

"To answer your question on what's the interface that government has, to balance the availability of information, availability of misinformation, the spread of disinformation and fake information, that is a balance which each government has to continue address within a given societal matrix," Kwatra said while speaking at the Panel Discussion On 'Showstopper: Currencies Of Power And Persuasion: Reflections On The Future' under the eighth edition of Raisina Dialogue.

He underlined that the balance is the constant thing which the government has to continue to address within a given societal matrix.

"So what you saw, vis-avis the banning of various Chinese apps, is no different in that sense," he added.

Pointing to the fact that how technology is moulding the way of going forward, he said that the question emerges whether the society is based on economic model or it is open to embracing technology openly.

"In Indian context, fundamentally when we look at technology, we essentially have 2 sets of binary foundations and the entire template of digital transformation in India is pegged on them. First, open vs close. We've very consciously gone for openness in the use of technology," he added.

"If my economic model is purely based on manufacturing and suddenly manufacturing is open to a burst of automation, then obviously I'll have a massive disruption within my system. But if I have a service economy, it'll probably boom," he added.

"Binary no.2 which forms the foundation is - public good vs private gain. Because of our value system and ethos, we have gone for public good," he said.

In a major crackdown, the Central government of India banned and blocked 138 betting apps and 94 loan lending apps with Chinese links on an 'urgent' and 'emergency' basis in early February this year.

The move was taken after confirming that these apps attract Section 69 of the IT Act as they contain material which is prejudicial to the sovereignty and integrity of India.

“All workers are our workers who help Tamil Nadu’s growth and nothing will happen to impact them, I have assured him,” Stalin, who spoke to Nitish Kumar over phone, said in a statement.

He further said that workers from northern states need not have any kind of apprehensions over working in Tamil Nadu. In the unlikely event of somebody intimidating them, Stalin added, they may inform police, who would take immediate action.

Stalin’s reassurance to Nitish Kumar, whom he addressed as his “revered brother”, came in the backdrop of false allegations on social media that migrant workers, especially from Bihari, were attacked in Tamil Nadu for speaking in Hindi. The issue rocked the Bihar assembly on Friday, with leaders of the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) stalling the proceedings claiming Bihari workers were being targeted for speaking Hindi in Tamil Nadu.

In Bihar, images of workers returning from southern states for Holi were being circulated with misleading messages of a mass exodus. In the past few

The action behind the move is based on several complaints of extortion and harassment of common people who had availed small amounts of loans through the mobile apps being run by those entities and persons.

It is learnt that these apps are the brainchild of Chinese nationals who hired Indians and made them directors in operation. Desperate individuals are lured into days, the purported videos of workers being beaten circulated on social media were found to be fake and from other states.

Stalin said some incidents that happened outside of Tamil Nadu were spread by falsely claiming to have taken place in the southern state. The chief minister also asserted that “stern legal action” would be taken against those spreading panic through rumours. “Those spreading rumours that workers from other states are being attacked in Tamil Nadu are against the Indian nation, they infringe the national integrity,” he said in the statement. “Some doing cheap politics over a nonissue is condemnable.”

On March 2, Bihar CM Nitish Kumar and his Jharkhand counterpart Hemant Soren asked officials to look into alleged reports of attacks on migrant workers in Tamil Nadu.

Every claim of the attack will taking on a loan and then jacked up the interest by up to 3,000 per cent annually. be verified, Kumar told reporters on Saturday. “We have sent our officers to Tamil Nadu to verify. I have spoken to the chief minister (Stalin),” he said.

When the debtors were unable to repay the interest, let alone the entire loan, individuals representing these apps started harassing those in debt.

They sent them lewd messages, threatening to release their morphed photos and shaming them with messages to their contacts.

Meanwhile, the Tamil Nadu police on Saturday booked a BJP spokesperson from Uttar Pradesh, Prashant Umrao, for promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion and language under Section 153A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). “A team has been sent (to Uttar Pradesh) to arrest Umrao,” said a senior Tamil Nadu police officer, requesting anonymity.

Umrao on Friday shared a photo of Bihar deputy chief minister Tejashwi Prasad Yadav and Stalin in a tweet, that claimed: “…12 migrants from Bihar were hung to death in Tamil Nadu for speaking in Hindi.”

He later deleted his tweet. Yadav was in Chennai last week to celebrate Stalin’s 70th birthday.

The matter came into the spotlight after a spate of suicides, particularly in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, by those who opted for such loans or lost money to betting apps.

States like Telangana, Odisha and Uttar Pradesh as well as central intelligence agencies had then asked the Union Home Ministry to take action against these apps, sources said.

Police have also booked the editor of a local new portal for spreading enmity, officers said. The online portal had filed a story sharing purported videos, claiming them to be of Bihar workers being targeted in Tamil Nadu. However, a fact-checking team said the videos were old and not from Tamil Nadu.

District collectors in Tamil Nadu have issued appeals in Hindi, asking migrant workers to not be scared.

Tamil Nadu director general of police (DGP) Sylendra Babu confirmed that first information reports (FIRs) have been registered against five people so far.

“We will arrest individuals and in the case of institutions such as a newspaper we will issue summons to the editor...,” said Babu, who had earlier refuted allegations of attacks on Bihari migrants and dubbed two videos purportedly showing attacks on workers as “false and malicious”.

He added: “We have also reached out to large scale employers of migrant workers such as construction companies and Tirupur cluster, and have convinced them that this is fake news. We have given our numbers in their WhatsApp groups to help them reach out to us. A lot of them are on their way home for Holi so we have made arrangements for them in the railway stations.”

The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) issued an advisory, stating that since betting and gambling are illegal in most parts of the country, advertisements of these betting platforms, as well as their surrogates, are also illegal under the provisions of the Consumer Protection Act 2019, Cable TV Network Regulation Act 1995 and the IT Rules, 2021.