CHENNAI: After a spate of incidents in Northern districts of Tamil Nadu in which members of the public have assaulted persons — even leading to death — on suspicion of their being child traffickers, police these districts have pointed to the spread of rumours on social media as contributing to this violence.
Messages alleging that groups of people from north Indian states are trying to kidnap children in Tamil Nadu have caused alarm among the public, even as police have rubbished such rumours.
One such message doing the rounds recently reads: “Alert parents and ladies: Nearly 52 child missing case filed in kanchipuram alone yesterday. One North Indian was arrested today morning near pillayar paalayam. The arrested’s statement, more than 1000 persons spread over Tamilnadu 1000+ Hindi Guys from Bihar entered Tamilnadu with an intention to KidnapChildren’s 4 of them was caught today in #Kanchipuram.(sic)”
Another message features video of a man beating drums and walking on a Vellore street claiming that north Indians are involved in child kidnapping. These messages appear to be going viral in Vellore, Kancheepuram and Tiruvallur districts.
However, after a man was beaten to death in Kancheepuram, police started clarifying to public that these messages were mere rumors. They also urged public to alert police if they were suspicious rather than attacking anyone. “We have sent out text messages, audio messages and even distributed pamphlets telling people not to believe such messages and not to circulate them and instructing people not to resort to physical assault,” Kancheepuram SP Santhosh Hadimani said.
“ So far, no case of child kidnap has been reported and we are trying to find the culprits who are sending out such messages,” he added.
After recent attacks in Tiruvannamalai district, including on Wednesday when a group of five from Chennai was assaulted, leading to death of a 65-year-old woman, district administration has swung into action. Collector K S Kandasamy said that no such kidnapping cases had been reported in the district and that police would be distributing pamphlets and spreading awareness against such rumours.
However, while police urge public to turn to them for help instead of taking the law into their own hands, observers suggest that this violence may be a sign of complete breakdown of public trust in the police.
“A certain sense of desperation to take care of themselves has set among the people. A social media post cannot instigate the people to kill another person but it is sense of frustration and loss of confidence.
And the re-occurrence of this is indicating a danger which should be sought by the police and administration. The police and the administration ought to be interacting with the public when such issues are brought to notice. And this only shows the failure of the police intelligence who failed to alert the seniors on the issues,” said V Suresh, national general secretary of People’s Union for Civil Liberties.