Lakshmana Venkat Kuchi

If the claims of the Coimbatore Police are true, persons connected to right-wing Hindu Munnani were responsible for beating up migrant workers from West Bengal two days ago. Tamil Nadu police have not taken this incident, coming amid an already tense situation arising out of fake videos of violence against migrant workers that were circulated on social media even by some BJP handles, lightly and have arrested the two Hindu Munnani members and another two persons.

Now this attack against migrant workers from West Bengal adds to the already heated up political debate. On Monday, the Coimbatore Police Commissioner V Balakrishnan told the media that Surya Prakash, Prakash, Pragadeesh and Velmurugan were arrested for their alleged involvement in assaulting four migrant workers from Bengal. The four have been booked under sections 294 (b) (singing, reciting, uttering any obscene words in public) and 323 (punishment for voluntarily causing hurt) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). 

Incidentally, their arrests came after a video of an attack that took place in Coimbatore went viral. The migrant workers had also filed a police complaint at the Variety Hall Road police station on March 12 itself in which they maintained that they were attacked for no reason by four men on motorcycles. 

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“We have taken into custody all four men who attacked the migrants and have also seized the two bikes used. Further investigation is underway,” Balakrishnan told the media and added that the four were allegedly in an inebriated condition at the time of the incident.

What gives a sharp twist to the normal arrests is the suspected involvement of members of the Hindu Munnani group, a right-wing organisation. Now even in the earlier incident of fake news videos of alleged attacks on migrants from Bihar, a few Twitter handles belonging to the BJP were investigated by the police in Bihar and also few arrests were made.

Now this Coimbatore incident and the alleged involvement of persons police claim were members of Hindu Munnani has the potential to further heat up the debate on migrant workers. In fact, top BJP leaders of the state took TN CM MK Stalin to task after fake news videos of purported attacks on migrants went viral and even Bihar CM Nitish Kumar had begun asking questions. 

The Hindu Munnani, however, claimed in a statement that the arrested people had no connection with the group. 

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The DMK has blamed the BJP for circulating fake videos and spreading panic in an attempt to misalign and unseat the government. DMK spokesperson A Saravanan said that “we all know that BJP leaders and spokespersons were peddling fake news.” 

This is instantly rejected outright by the BJP, whose leaders blame the DMK for its divisive politics and rhetoric against north Indians.

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