Punjab YouTuber in racism row being brought to Arunachal

Itanagar: The now infamous YouTuber from Punjab Paras Singh, who was arrested by the Ludhiana police on Tuesday for using racial remarks against senior Congress MLA Ninong Ering and the people of Arunachal Pradesh, would be brought to state capital Itanagar late on Thursday night.

State inspector general of police (law and order) Chuku Apa said the SIT team of the Arunachal Pradesh Police that had flown to Ludhiana in Punjab to bring Paras to the state are en route and should reach the capital later tonight.

The 3-member SIT team is led by inspector Techi Vijay.

IGP Apa said following Paras’s arrival in Itanagar, the police would complete the legal formalities and file a chargesheet in the case.

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“He would then be sent to judicial custody,” the IGP said, while adding that “the future course of action would depend on the court’s verdict.”

Paras was arrested by the Ludhiana police on Tuesday for use of racial slur against Ering and inciting ill-will and hatred towards the people of Arunachal Pradesh.

Paras made the comments while reacting to a letter addressed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi by Ering 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.

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.

Police investigates two more cases

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SIT superintendent of police Rohit Rajbeer Singh said the state police is investigating two more cases of racial abuse against MLA Ering.

After Paras, two more PUBG Mobile streamers, Inder Preet aka GTX Preet and esports pro, Shivamm Raghav aka 420 Gaming had referred to MLA Ering as Chinese.

Inder has around 17.9 lakh subscribers on YouTube while Raghav is also a professional PUBG Mobile streamer who has around 1.13 lakh subscribers.

As per the separate video screenshots of Inder and Raghav doing the rounds of social media, the former can be heard saying in Hindi that “Ering looks like Chinese to me” while the latter is heard saying “the name of the person (Ering) who has asked the government to ban Battleground Mobile India is sounds and looks like a Chinese name.”

The Tencent-funded company, Krafton’s PUBG Mobile was banned in India in September 2020 due to geopolitical tensions between India and China, as well as concerns regarding user data and privacy. Krafton has since been trying to bring back the game as Battlegrounds Mobile India.

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Recently, however, former Union Minister and current Arunachal Pradesh MLA Ninong Ering wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, requesting a ban on what he terms as “the relaunch of PUBG Mobile.” 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 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.”

Though Raghav issued an apology through his channel on Wednesday and has deleted the video where he had made those comments, there has been no such communication from Inder except for him deleting the video. He was seen busy streaming PUBG on his YouTube channel at the time of filing this report.

An email was also sent to Inder seeking his comments but he is yet to respond.

SP Singh said the police are trying to figure out the whereabouts of both the social media influencers. He, however, said the police are yet to receive any official complaints against the duo.

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