Fake viral Whatsapp messages work as careless whispers
Fake news has taken real lives over the past week in northern Tamil Nadu, in the process laying bare fissures in relations between police and citizens, locals and outsiders, ‘normal’ and ‘different’.
Published: 13th May 2018 04:00 AM | Last Updated:
Pulicat bridge with the iconic lighthouse in the background | D Sampathkumar
By Jayanthi Pawar
Express News Service
CHENNAI: The street leading to Pulicat bridge is bustling with commercial activity on Friday. Under the bridge, Pulicat lake is placid. Only bloodstains on one side of the bridge indicate that all is not well. The man whose blood stains the bridge has yet to be identified. On the night of May 9, he was assaulted and hanged from the bridge by a mob of locals, who had believed him to be part of a child-lifting gang they had been warned of on a viral Whatsapp message.
By all accounts, the man was a homeless Hindi-speaker dressed in rags who had been seen for months on the streets of Palaverkadu, a tourist spot about 50km north of Chennai, famous for the Pulicat Lake. This is where Kosasthalaiyar River meets the Bay of Bengal.
The unidentified man is at least the fourth person killed in the State’s northern districts by mob violence that seems to have been sparked by panic and fear of rumoured child trafficking gangs on the prowl. These rumours have spread by word of mouth in some parts but also by fake social media messages on WhatsApp, some of which specify that the child-lifters are north Indians.
In the past week alone, there have been at least a dozen brutal attacks, including deaths in Palaverkadu and Athimoor, in the villages of the northern districts. The latest reported attack was Friday evening at Tamaraipakkam, a village 50km up the banks of the Kosasthalaiyar. The victim, Muthu Pathuraj, was left bleeding profusely from his mouth after being assaulted by a local mob.
In response to this spate of violence, police in these districts, including Kancheepuram, Cuddalore and Tiruvannamalai, have started a vigorous campaign to combat the rumours. Through TV interviews, pamphlets and neighbourhood announcements, police are trying to dispel villagers’ fears and urge them to call for help before turning to violence.
There have been no such cases reported, police have reiterated. Police are also resorting to arrests of anyone involved in such incidents. This is causing villagers in some areas to flee their homes while those who stay back are wary of speaking to outsiders.
So far, some 100 people have been arrested across the State, many on charges of murder or attempt to murder. Police have even warned that persons who spread panic would be detained under the draconian Goondas Act, which denies bail to the accused for up to a year.
Ironic then that activists argue that this turn to violence is a sign of a breakdown of trust between police and citizens. But mob violence is only the final sign of the villagers’ fears. In Palaverkadu, after the killing, locals revealed that they had taken to night patrolling in the fishing hamlets after news of child-lifting gangs spread. One of the WhatsApp messages that motivated this 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).
Even in Salavakkam, some 120km from Palaverkadu, such messages have forced villagers to resort night vigils. “If everybody shares it (in social media), and warns us against people from other States, it should be true only,” argues K Gunasekaran, an undergraduate from the village. He is part of the night patrol team.
It is one such night patrol team that allegedly assaulted and hanged the unidentified man in Palaverkadu. A few of the villagers, present at the assault, told Express that the mob was angry as the man “continued to speak in Hindi” and was found carrying a small knife.
After he died, a few locals remember seeing him at the tea shop or restaurants or sleeping in the bus stop in rags. “He never disturbed anybody,” says T Murugan, a flower vendor at the Palaverkadu market near the bridge. Police believe he may have been mentally ill.
“There are three such men in the market and we informed the police to admit them in a home but no step was taken. Still there are two more intellectually disabled people near the market. I hope at least they are shifted,” says R P S Senthil Kumar, a former teacher at a school in Palaverkadu.
Indeed it is such disabled persons who have become most vulnerable to such panic-fuelled mob fury. In Kattumailur village in Cuddalore district, a former councillor was one of eight arrested after an 18-year-old girl, reportedly intellectually disabled, was assaulted by a mob on Wednesday, as the village celebrated a festival at the famed Draupathi Amman temple. “Some even offered her food during the day. But around 9pm she entered a house and was sitting on the verandah when people started suspecting her,” says a woman in the village.
This woman was camping at the Veppur police station on Friday as one of her nephews had been arrested in connection with the attack on the girl. She claims that the climate of fear created by the viral WhatsApp messages and the suspicious presence of the teen, who also looked like a North Indian, resulted in the attack.
In April too, a man, reportedly mentally ill, had been killed by a mob in a Kancheepuram village over child-lifting fears. In response, police in some districts such as Villupuram, have started picking up homeless and intellectually disabled persons and sending them to NGO-run homes to prevent any possibility of an assault. Of course, it is not only the disabled who have faced violence. The messages have sparked some anti-north Indian sentiment in these parts. A Ponneri sub-inspector says that in the past week, locals have been restless and have taken to abusing any north Indian they have spotted in the locality.
N Lakshmanan was the victim of an assault on Wednesday in Midhur village, some 12km from Palaverkadu. “I asked for the way to the bus stand when some 10 people started hitting me,” Lakshmanan said in a video that was posted to Facebook by a Midhur resident.
The 32-year-old who works at a private firm in Sholavaram had gone with a friend to get a drink. “He was returning at around 9 pm and had passed by my shop. A few metres away, he was talking to two locals who checked his bag. When he answered in Hindi, they attacked him and around 200 others joined,” says K Damodaran who runs a grocery shop in Midhur. K M Dinesh who posted the video told Express that he wanted to show people the consequences of acting on fake news. Most of the men involved in the Ponneri incidents were found to be in an inebriated state, police said.
Meanwhile, heads of fishing hamlets have started instructing fishermen to simply hand over any suspicious strangers to police. In what now seems like a full circle, some villagers in the Palaverkadu, at least, are now scared that they might be attacked while out at night alone. “Police should conduct patrols. If their presence is felt then no such incidents would take place,” says N Thangamani, a fisherman from Kottaikuppam.
This is not the first time that Tamil Nadu has had to deal with the consequences of viral fake news. Last March, many Chennai parents refused to allow administration of the Measles-Rubella vaccine to their children after rumours spread on social media. With the blood from the unidentified man still staining the Pulicat bridge, it may well be time for the State to start looking for solutions.
Chronicle of death
May 9: A Hindi-speaking man was beaten and hanged to death from the Pulicat bridge near Palaverkadu after being mistaken for a kidnapper. He was supposedly mentally ill
May 9: Rukmani, a 55-year-old woman was lynched and four of her relatives were seriously injured by a mob in Thiruvannamalai when they suspected them to be kidnappers
April 28: A north Indian man was beaten to death in Chinnaiyan Chatram in Kancheepuram district after he was suspected to be a child-lifter
Fake news has taken real lives over the past week in northern Tamil Nadu, in the process laying bare fissures in relations between police and citizens, locals and outsiders, ‘normal’ and ‘different’.
Published: 13th May 2018 04:00 AM | Last Updated:
Pulicat bridge with the iconic lighthouse in the background | D Sampathkumar
By Jayanthi Pawar
Express News Service
CHENNAI: The street leading to Pulicat bridge is bustling with commercial activity on Friday. Under the bridge, Pulicat lake is placid. Only bloodstains on one side of the bridge indicate that all is not well. The man whose blood stains the bridge has yet to be identified. On the night of May 9, he was assaulted and hanged from the bridge by a mob of locals, who had believed him to be part of a child-lifting gang they had been warned of on a viral Whatsapp message.
By all accounts, the man was a homeless Hindi-speaker dressed in rags who had been seen for months on the streets of Palaverkadu, a tourist spot about 50km north of Chennai, famous for the Pulicat Lake. This is where Kosasthalaiyar River meets the Bay of Bengal.
The unidentified man is at least the fourth person killed in the State’s northern districts by mob violence that seems to have been sparked by panic and fear of rumoured child trafficking gangs on the prowl. These rumours have spread by word of mouth in some parts but also by fake social media messages on WhatsApp, some of which specify that the child-lifters are north Indians. In the past week alone, there have been at least a dozen brutal attacks, including deaths in Palaverkadu and Athimoor, in the villages of the northern districts. The latest reported attack was Friday evening at Tamaraipakkam, a village 50km up the banks of the Kosasthalaiyar. The victim, Muthu Pathuraj, was left bleeding profusely from his mouth after being assaulted by a local mob.
In response to this spate of violence, police in these districts, including Kancheepuram, Cuddalore and Tiruvannamalai, have started a vigorous campaign to combat the rumours. Through TV interviews, pamphlets and neighbourhood announcements, police are trying to dispel villagers’ fears and urge them to call for help before turning to violence.
There have been no such cases reported, police have reiterated. Police are also resorting to arrests of anyone involved in such incidents. This is causing villagers in some areas to flee their homes while those who stay back are wary of speaking to outsiders.
So far, some 100 people have been arrested across the State, many on charges of murder or attempt to murder. Police have even warned that persons who spread panic would be detained under the draconian Goondas Act, which denies bail to the accused for up to a year.
Ironic then that activists argue that this turn to violence is a sign of a breakdown of trust between police and citizens. But mob violence is only the final sign of the villagers’ fears. In Palaverkadu, after the killing, locals revealed that they had taken to night patrolling in the fishing hamlets after news of child-lifting gangs spread. One of the WhatsApp messages that motivated this 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).
Even in Salavakkam, some 120km from Palaverkadu, such messages have forced villagers to resort night vigils. “If everybody shares it (in social media), and warns us against people from other States, it should be true only,” argues K Gunasekaran, an undergraduate from the village. He is part of the night patrol team.
It is one such night patrol team that allegedly assaulted and hanged the unidentified man in Palaverkadu. A few of the villagers, present at the assault, told Express that the mob was angry as the man “continued to speak in Hindi” and was found carrying a small knife.
After he died, a few locals remember seeing him at the tea shop or restaurants or sleeping in the bus stop in rags. “He never disturbed anybody,” says T Murugan, a flower vendor at the Palaverkadu market near the bridge. Police believe he may have been mentally ill.
“There are three such men in the market and we informed the police to admit them in a home but no step was taken. Still there are two more intellectually disabled people near the market. I hope at least they are shifted,” says R P S Senthil Kumar, a former teacher at a school in Palaverkadu.
Indeed it is such disabled persons who have become most vulnerable to such panic-fuelled mob fury. In Kattumailur village in Cuddalore district, a former councillor was one of eight arrested after an 18-year-old girl, reportedly intellectually disabled, was assaulted by a mob on Wednesday, as the village celebrated a festival at the famed Draupathi Amman temple. “Some even offered her food during the day. But around 9pm she entered a house and was sitting on the verandah when people started suspecting her,” says a woman in the village.
This woman was camping at the Veppur police station on Friday as one of her nephews had been arrested in connection with the attack on the girl. She claims that the climate of fear created by the viral WhatsApp messages and the suspicious presence of the teen, who also looked like a North Indian, resulted in the attack.
In April too, a man, reportedly mentally ill, had been killed by a mob in a Kancheepuram village over child-lifting fears. In response, police in some districts such as Villupuram, have started picking up homeless and intellectually disabled persons and sending them to NGO-run homes to prevent any possibility of an assault. Of course, it is not only the disabled who have faced violence. The messages have sparked some anti-north Indian sentiment in these parts. A Ponneri sub-inspector says that in the past week, locals have been restless and have taken to abusing any north Indian they have spotted in the locality.
N Lakshmanan was the victim of an assault on Wednesday in Midhur village, some 12km from Palaverkadu. “I asked for the way to the bus stand when some 10 people started hitting me,” Lakshmanan said in a video that was posted to Facebook by a Midhur resident.
The 32-year-old who works at a private firm in Sholavaram had gone with a friend to get a drink. “He was returning at around 9 pm and had passed by my shop. A few metres away, he was talking to two locals who checked his bag. When he answered in Hindi, they attacked him and around 200 others joined,” says K Damodaran who runs a grocery shop in Midhur. K M Dinesh who posted the video told Express that he wanted to show people the consequences of acting on fake news. Most of the men involved in the Ponneri incidents were found to be in an inebriated state, police said.
Meanwhile, heads of fishing hamlets have started instructing fishermen to simply hand over any suspicious strangers to police. In what now seems like a full circle, some villagers in the Palaverkadu, at least, are now scared that they might be attacked while out at night alone. “Police should conduct patrols. If their presence is felt then no such incidents would take place,” says N Thangamani, a fisherman from Kottaikuppam.
This is not the first time that Tamil Nadu has had to deal with the consequences of viral fake news. Last March, many Chennai parents refused to allow administration of the Measles-Rubella vaccine to their children after rumours spread on social media. With the blood from the unidentified man still staining the Pulicat bridge, it may well be time for the State to start looking for solutions.
Chronicle of death
May 9: A Hindi-speaking man was beaten and hanged to death from the Pulicat bridge near Palaverkadu after being mistaken for a kidnapper. He was supposedly mentally ill
May 9: Rukmani, a 55-year-old woman was lynched and four of her relatives were seriously injured by a mob in Thiruvannamalai when they suspected them to be kidnappers
April 28: A north Indian man was beaten to death in Chinnaiyan Chatram in Kancheepuram district after he was suspected to be a child-lifter
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