Bihar's officials to visit Tamil Nadu, assist migrants' return to state

PATNA:  A four-member special team is leaving for Tamil Nadu today to assist those migrant workers hailing from Bihar who wanted to return to their native places in the wake of an alleged attack on them. The team has been constituted on the directive of chief minister Nitish Kumar.

The team consisting of Alok Kumar, labour department's secretary, E.L.S.N. Bala Prasad, secretary of the rural development department, P Kannan, DIG, CID, will visit trouble-affected areas of DMK-ruled state and meet the migrant workers. Both Bala Prasad and Kannan are stated to be natives of Tamil Nadu.

On Friday, chief minister Nitish Kumar gave a direction to send a special team to Tamil Nadu after a delegation of BJP under the stewardship of the leader of the Opposition in the Bihar Assembly Vijay Kumar Sinha called on him, seeking the CM's intervention in view of alleged attacks on migrant workers hailing from Bihar in Tamil Nadu.

Nitish directed state chief secretary Amir Subhani and director general of police Rajvinder Singh Bhatti to send a special team to Tamil Nadu for helping migrant workers, willing to return to the state and ascertain the truth behind the alleged attack.

Meanwhile, deputy chief minister Tejashwi Yadav said that the opposition was perturbed over two viral videos showing the assault on some people over the last two days. He said that the chief minister by taking cognisance of the matter asked senior officers to talk to their counterparts in Tamil Nadu.

ALSO READ| Bihar to send team to probe ‘attack’ rumours; TN says migrants safe here

On it, Tamil Nadu's DGP C Sylendra Babu clearly said viral videos were related to old incidents that took place in Tiruppur and Coimbatore and also stated without any ambiguity that these videos were not related to any clash between locals and migrants. No such clash has taken place and if anybody has such information, he should inform the government, Tejashwi quoted TN DGP as saying.

Launching a scathing attack on BJP MLAs in the House on the issue, Tejashwi said, “These people have only one work of spreading canard. BJP leaders only do negative politics and claim themselves to be patriots by chanting ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’.

“Now, they should tell whether Tamil Nadu is not a part of India and if it is, why they are spreading hatred between the people of two states,” he added. 

“Viral videos are fake and if you do not believe them, you can get it verified by the Union Home Minister,” Tejashwi remarked while sharpening his attack on BJP. On the other hand, the leader of the opposition in Bihar Vijay Kumar Sinha told media persons that migrant workers from the state were scared after the videos had gone viral. He said that migrant workers were returning to their home state even as
Tamil Nadu DGP was suppressing facts.