Kallakurichi violence: Special team constituted to track rioters

CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu police's Special Investigation Team (SIT), that was constituted after a Madras High Court order to probe into the July 17 violence in Kallakurichi, has constituted experts to track the Internet Protocol (IP) addresses and contact details of several social media platforms used by the rioters.

The special team has already identified seven WhatsApp groups with 3,875 members that were used to instigate violence. The SIT has also deployed an exclusive team of tech experts to work on online platforms and social media platforms that were used to instigate violent protests.

The team has identified 63 YouTube links, 31 Twitter links, and 37 Facebook links that were misused to spread hate and violence and requests have been sent to Google, Facebook, and Twitter asking for the IP addresses and account details of those who have uploaded the contents.

The police team has also sent a request to the Tamil Nadu nodal officer for blocking of contents as per Information Technology Act. Violence had erupted in Kallakurichi on July 17 with the hundreds of protesters vandalising the school, torching school buses and destroying and setting afire several two-wheelers after a class 12 student of a private school jumped to death from the third floor of the hostel on July 13.

Meanwhile, the state government has started a policy to appoint psychologists in every district of the state to enable the children to get proper counselling taking into consideration the recent suicides by Class 12 students of Kallakurichi private residential school and some other schools in Tamil Nadu.

Madras High Court had on Friday directed the state government to come up with a definite stand on the study timings of the children as there were reports of some private schools forcing students to study from 6 a.m. in the morning till late evening.

The court has directed that such long study hours are creating huge stress on children and had called upon the state to put a curb on such strenuous teaching hours and asked schools to make children indulge in extracurricular activities like sports. The special public prosecutor informed the court that psychological counselling centres would be opened in all districts of the state for the students to help them manage unnecessary stress.