Chennai police have booked Tamil Nadu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president K Annamalai for allegedly inciting violence and promoting enmity between two groups after rumours of attacks on migrant workers in the state.
Annamalai called the case against him false and dared the Tamil Nadu Police to ‘touch him’ within the next 24 hours. “You think that you can suppress democracy by filing false cases. I give you 24 hours and dare you to touch me,” he said in a tweet.
பொய் வழக்குகளை போட்டு ஜனநாயக குரல்வளையை நசுக்கி விடலாம் என்று எண்ணுகிறீர்கள்.ஒரு சாமானிய மனிதனாக சொல்கிறேன், 24 மணி நேரம் கால அவகாசம் உங்களுக்கு அளிக்கிறேன், முடிந்தால் என் மீது கை வையுங்கள்!
— K.Annamalai (@annamalai_k) March 5, 2023
The BJP leader was booked under sections 153, 153A(1)(a), 505(1)(b) and 505(1)(c) of the Indian Penal Code, after he held the ruling DMK and its allies responsible for the situation.
In his statement earlier, Annamalai blamed the DMK and said the party’s efforts in “mocking” the work done by North Indians is the reason why the fake news spread so quickly.
“Since DMK’s origin, it has been spewing hate against a particular community. Since the DMK came to power, the party’s ministers and MPs have mocked (North Indians) in their speeches countless times”, he said.
On Saturday, cases were also registered against an FIR against a Twitter user Mohammed Tanvir, whose profile described him as a journalist, Bihar BJP spokesperson Prashant Patel Umrao, editor of Dainik Bhaskar and two social media influencers Shubham Shukla and Yuvraj Singh Rajput, under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) for spreading disinformation and claiming that migrant workers have been fatally attacked.
Tamil Nadu Governor RN Ravi on Sunday sought to assuage any apprehensions of migrant workers in Tamil Nadu in the wake of alleged rumours of some of them being attacked in the state, saying the people in the state were nice and friendly.
The workers need not panic, the Raj Bhavan said in tweets posted in Tamil, English and Hindi.
“Governor urged the North Indian labourers in Tamil Nadu not to panic and feel insecure, as the people of Tamil Nadu are very nice and friendly, and the state government is committed to provide them security,” Raj Bhavan said on its official Twitter handle.
With inputs from News18
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