Migrant workers safe in TN: Stalin

Chennai, March 4 (IANS) Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. K. Stalin on Saturday said that the migrant workers in the state are safe and they need not worry.

He said that strict action would be taken against those spreading rumours on social media platforms about attacks on migrant workers.

In a statement, he termed people spreading rumours against migrant workers "anti-national".

Stalin said that it was highly condemnable that some people were doing "dirty politics" in a cheap manner on social media and added that strict legal action would be taken against such people who intentionally circulate rumours and spread fear and panic.

The statement from the Chief Minister came after messages were spread on social media that migrant workers from Bihar were attacked in Tamil Nadu.

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has already decided to send a team of officers to Tamil Nadu to verify on the social media campaigns that the Bihar workers were attacked in Tamil Nadu.

The Bihar unit of the BJP had also come out strongly against the RJD leader and Deputy Chief Minister of Bihar, Tejaswi Yadav on his participation in Chief Minister Stalin's 70th birthday celebrations even as labourers from Bihar were attacked in Tamil Nadu.

The Tamil Nadu Director General of Police, C. Sylendrababu, has also clarified on Friday that there was no attack on migrant workers from Bihar in Tamil Nadu and that rumour mongers were spreading lies on social media.

However, two incidents involving migrant workers and locals entering into confrontation had taken place in Tiruppur and Coimbatore. In the first one, a group of migrant workers were attacked by locals on January 14 at a garment factory in Tiruppur. The second one was the attack on a few migrant workers at the canteen of a private college in Coimbatore on February 14.

While these were minor incidents and settled amicably by local interventions, rumours were spread in social media platforms that migrant workers from Bihar and Jharkhand were brutally beaten up citing their domicile status.