Don't call us coronavirus: NE students

    18-Mar-2020

Don't call us coronavirus
New Delhi, Mar 17
The outbreak of the novel coronavirus has created a lot of panic among people. But amid this, cases of racism and discrimination have also come forward, like people passing problematic comments towards citizens from North East States.
Recently a video of students, living in a small village in Punjab called Chunni Kalan, also went viral on social media because of the same reason. The students took to Facebook to post a video explaining how after the virus outbreak, people have been calling them names such as coronavirus.
The video was shared on a Facebook page called Dimapur 24/7 with the caption, "Stop calling us corona, ch***i, Chinese ... North East students of Punjab. #Govt_Of_India #say #No #to #Racism #Students #Northeast #India."
The clip starts with a girl saying, "Abhi jo chal raha hai yeh coronavirus, humare upar bahut effect ho raha hai kyunki pehle toh humein Nepali, Ch***i, Chinese yeh sab bolta tha, abhi toh coronavirus ho gaya hai."
In the video, the students shared instances where people labelled them as coronavirus because according to them they look Chinese. They can be seen appealing to people to not do this as it is hurtful, discouraging and impacts their studies.
They even said that few of their friends were denied to stay on rent because people thought they were from China.
The students also urged the viewers to educate themselves about the map of India and know more about the North East States.
After being shared, the video immediately went viral and managed to garner around 301k views. Many users took to the comments section to share their stories and express their anger.
At the time of writing this article, the video had around 604 comments and 3.2K shares. India Today Web Desk