Press "Enter" to skip to content

He’s a Tamilian too: Chennai cops counter visuals of police violence with this PR video

Days after videos of policemen indulging in violence during the jallikattu protests surfaced, the Chennai police is on a social media PR overdrive. A video titled ‘Ivanum Tamilan than’ (He’s also a Tamilian) is doing the rounds on Facebook, Twitter and Whatsapp, making an emotional appeal to people on behalf of the police.

The visuals in the video have been carefully chosen: a policeman injured on his head, people attacking a police vehicle with wood logs and a mob coming running towards few policemen.

And through the clip is a melodramatic background tune: ‘Malarodu Malar’, a song from the movie Bombay, which appeals for peace.

As the Ice House police station in Triplicane burns on the screen, these words pop up: “Only he can show the feelings of a mother during a riot, but we forget to show him motherly feelings.”

As visuals of people throwing stones at policemen come on, the text reminds that the police “cannot throw stones at the students who threw stones at us.”

The video shows various wounded police personnel, and the text says, “They believed in Thamizhans and came without any weapons, so why did they wound them? Was it right to break the hands of those who served us by standing with their hands folded for six days?”

The video ends with a wounded police officer saying, “I’m also a Tamilian.” And the last lines read, “He is the god of the border who protects us by putting up with all this.”

This video has appeared after visuals of policemen attacking protesters and burning vehicles went viral, following the jallikattu protests.

In one of the videos with News 18, the visuals show a policeman throwing a burning bundle into an auto. An overturned cart can be seen in the visual and some fire behind it. The video was tweeted by actors like Kamal Hassan and Arvind Swamy.

However, the police commissioner claimed that these videos were morphed and proper investigation will be carried out on these allegations.

National Human Rights Commission and State Human Rights Commission have issued notices to the Director General of Police seeking a response on the police crackdown on protesters.

Source: The News Minute