Arunachal cops want transit remand for YouTuber in racism row

Itanagar: Punjab-based YouTuber Paras Singh, who was arrested by the Ludhiana Police on Tuesday for his alleged racial remarks against Arunachal Pradesh Congress legislator Ninong Ering and the people of the state, would be brought to Arunachal by the state police within the next 5 days.

Arunachal Pradesh inspector general of police (law and order) Chuku Apa reaffirmed that the YouTuber was picked up by a team of Ludhiana Police led by joint commissioner Deepak Pareek on Tuesday morning.

“Paras was on the run since Monday. However, aggressive surveillance efforts of the Ludhiana Police under the supervision of Commissioner Rakesh Agrawal led to the arrest of the YouTuber.”

RELATED | ‘Looks Chinese’: PUBG gamer’s racial slur on MLA has Arunachal fuming

Singh was reportedly arrested from the A.P Basti in Punjab’s Ludhiana district.

“A three-member special investigating team (SIT) of the Arunachal Pradesh Police, led by inspector Techi Vijay, is en route to New Delhi and they would be reaching Ludhiana on Wednesday. Paras would then be produced before the court during which the SIT team would seek a transit remand to bring him to Arunachal,” the IGP said.

Apa said the state police will put in every effort to bring Singh to Arunachal and make him face the charges here.

RELATED | Racial slur on Arunachal MLA might land Punjab Youtuber in jail

“We will be appealing for a transit remand of 5 days taking the pandemic situation into consideration,” Apa said, adding that the content creator is not a minor and is aged about 25 years old.

The IGP further appealed to the people of the state to stay away from making offensive comments against the YouTuber in social media and cautioned that those doing so would also be liable to face legal charges.

A case under u/s 124A/ 153A/ 505(2) IPC has been registered against Paras by the state’s cyber crime team while multiple FIRs have also been lodged across Arunachal against the YouTuber for his racial statements.

RELATED | Punjab YouTuber detained in row over racial slur on Arunachal MLA

Paras Singh, who goes by the name ‘Paras Official’ on his YouTube channel, had allegedly termed Ering “as a non-Indian and Arunachal Pradesh, a part of China,” in one of his videos posted on Sunday.

Paras made the comments while reacting to a letter addressed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi by Ering recently, wherein the latter had asked the PM to ban the re-launch of PUBG Mobile India’s new avatar Battlegrounds Mobile India.

Ering had reasoned that the game was aimed at deceiving the government and citizens and should be banned in the country.

The former MP had also said that “re-launching the game was a mere illusion and a trick to collect user data of the citizens, including children and transfer it to foreign companies and the Chinese government.”