Police have registered a case against seven people in Tambaram.
The 42-year-old individual who had been employed in a construction company in Maraimalai Nagar for 25 years was arrested by Tambaram city police for sharing a video in which he spread false information that migrant workers from northern India had been attacked in Tamil Nadu.
On March 3, a disinformation video was circulated on social media in which workers belonging to Jharkhand were seen complaining about their plight in Chennai.
Tambaram Police Commissioner A Amalraj said, “The group of people employed at a construction site in Maraimalai Nagar, and they said they faced many problems at their workplace in Chennai as they applied to return to their state of origin”.
The video claims workers were beaten on buses and trains when they attempted to return to their places of origin, as well as being denied medical treatment at city hospitals, the official added.
Several news outlets in North India circulated the video and broadcast it as the plight of migrant workers in Tamil Nadu. Following the video containing false allegations circulated on social media, the state police have launched a thorough investigation.
State Intelligence Police officers discovered that the video content was recorded in a building under construction at a famous university in Maraimalai Nagar in the southern suburb of the city.
Cybercrime cops tracked and identified the prime suspect Manoj Yadav of Jharkhand and his friends for uploading the video online which went viral later. They were working on a construction site within the premises of the SRM university.
Manoj Yadav and six others in the video left the construction site after a verbal confrontation with the superior. The police tracked down Manoj and recorded a video of him confessing that the video was fake and shot for online popularity. He confessed that he has worked in various places in Tamil Nadu for the past 25 years.
The police said that based on the complaint filed by the site project manager, a case has been registered in Maraimalai Nagar Police Station under Sections 153(A) (Promotion of enmity between different regional/linguistic/caste groups ), 505A (publication and dissemination of reports containing rumors with the intent to create enmity between communities), 505(b) (statements conducting public malice) of the IPC (Indian Penal Code). Manoj was arrested and placed in judicial custody, police said.
