Will unleash rapists on you, Trinamool MP Tapas Paul warns CPI(M)
[Read: Trinamool seeks explanation from MP for rape remark]
[Read: Political parties condemn Trinamool MP for rape remark]
He denied making the comments, saying he had spoken in the heat of the moment.
A Bengali news channel telecast Paul, from Krishnanagar constituency, of warning Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) men to "beware" of him as he won't "spare them and destroy their entire clan".
"If a CPI-M man dares to touch anybody, Tapas Paul will not spare him. I will take out my gun and shoot him. I always carry a gun... I will destroy his entire clan," Paul is heard telling his party workers in Choumaha village.
Paul, an actor-turned-politician, had acted with Madhuri Dixit in her debut film Abodh in 1984.
Paul later said he made the remark in the heat of the moment
"I warn my opponents... If anything happens to my mothers or sisters, my party workers, I will not spare them, I will have the last word. I will make their family pay dearly. I will ask my boys to go there. They will rape them and leave," says Paul, as his supporters cheered his every word.
Paul
is
heard
repeatedly
warning
his
opponents
and
threatening
them
with
dire
consequences.
"They
have
beaten
up
a
little
child,
a
mother,
a
sister.
All
the
villagers
of
Choumaha,
who
are
now
with
the
opposition,
I
again
warn
them.
I
will
be
in
Krishnanagar,
and
return
to
Choumaha
every
month.
"If I hear a single incident, I get a witness, I won't spare," Paul is heard saying.
As the Trinamool distanced itself from his comments and the opposition protested loudly, the actor-turned-politician later claimed that he never referred to rape.
"I might have said something in the heat of the moment. But the fact is I don't roam around with a revolver. And I did not say rape, rather it was 'raid'.
"I had said we will raid but because there was so much of noise, people thought I said rape," said Paul.
Trinamool
secretary
general
Partha
Chatterjee
said
the
party
does
not
endorse
Paul's
views.
"Neither
we
nor
the
party
endorses
his
views
but
then
it
has
to
be
seen
in
what
context
he
has
said
those
words.
It
needs
to
be
seen
if
any
of
the
people
or
women
were
subjected
to
any
attack,"
he
said.