Government to probe news that fuelled Bandra incident

New Delhi: The Centre through the I&B ministry has asked all its media units to look into TV news reports and flashes on Tuesday that could have triggered the mass gathering of migrant workers near Bandra railway station in Mumbai, hours after the lockdown was extended.

According to officials, I&B minister Prakash Javadekar has asked officials to look into the matter and give him a detailed report. While officials are looking at the reports shown on TV hours before the PM's speech, investigating agencies have also flagged hundreds of WhatsApp forwards that were circulated all of Tuesday morning, which talked about "Time to go home," and "Green flag to trains," among others.

Two channels, one Marathi and one Urdu, are particularly being looked into for talking about special trains for migrants, an official said. "A lot of news on TV can be classified as being speculative and that cannot be seen as the only reason for mobilising people. They have to be aided by other factors too. Hence we are looking at it very carefully," an official said.