Amidst the uproar over the viral video of two Kuki tribal being paraded naked and allegedly gang raped by a Meitei mob in ethnic violence-hit Manipur, a short clip of an old interview of Meitei Leepun chief, Pramot Singh is breaking the internet. In the video clip, the leader calls Kuki them “outsiders and tenants”.
The video clip is from an interview with senior journalist Karan Thapar on June 6. After the clip surfaced on the internet, Pramot Singh has been at the receiving end of the backlash as the netizens accuse him of inciting “annihilation of Christian Kukis”.
In the interview, Singh is heard saying, “The whole population of the Kukis will be wiped out from the area because they have been blocking essential commodities, and setting up encroachments (sic).”
According to The Wire reports, Pramot Singh said the Kukis were “outsiders, and indigenous to Manipur.”
During the interview, Singh also admits that Meitei Leepun was involved in ‘providing gun training to people who had gun licences’. He claimed if the government, either in Delhi or Manipur, did not intervene quickly, there will be a civil war and the ‘Kukis will not be able to defend themselves’.
Netizens react
“A Hindu Meitei leader Pramod Singh openly confessed in an interview that how they plan to completely annihilate the minority Christian Kukis… Shame on N Biren Singh, Shame on Narendra Mod, ” wrote a twitter user.
However on July 12, following the interview, Singh was booked under Sections 120B, 153A, 504, 505, 506 and 34 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), which pertain to criminal conspiracy, promoting enmity between groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language etc.
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