'Attack' on migrant workers: Case against TN BJP chief Annamalai

The Chennai police under the CCB Cyber Crime Division registered a case against BJP Tamil Nadu President K Annamalai for inciting violence and promoting enmity between two groups after rumours of attacks on migrant workers in the state

He was charged under sections 153, 153A(1)(a),505(1)(b) IPC 505(1)(c) of the IPC. This was after he stated that the ruling DMK and its allies were responsible for the situation in the state.

The Tamil Nadu Police also registered an FIR against the Editor of Dainik Bhaskar, a Hindi newspaper; Twitter user Mohammed Tanveer whose profile shows him as a journalist; BJP spokesman from Bihar Prasant Umrao and two social media influencers, Shubham Shukhla and Yuvaraj Singh Rajput under various sections of IPC.

Meanwhile, Annamalai in a tweet dared the Tamil Nadu Police to touch him within the next 24 hours. The BJP leader said, "You think that you can suppress democracy by filing false cases. I give you 24 hours and dare you touch me."

Messages with videos of migrant workers being 'attacked' were doing the rounds on social media of late and went viral. One such fake message was allegedly a tweet that claimed "12 migrants from Bihar were hung to death in Tamil Nadu for speaking in Hindi," by Prashant Umrao, a spokesperson of the Uttar Pradesh’s BJP unit.

The police and state administration have claimed that the videos showing labourers being attacked on are fake and the two incidents occurred much earlier in Tiruppur and Coimbatore. Both cases were not clashes between the people of Tamil Nadu and migrant workers, they said.

(With agency inputs)