Yvonne Webb

Southex CEO George Singh, pro­mot­er of the So­ca Chut­ney Monarch Com­pe­ti­tion, said yes­ter­day he was pained that af­ter 20 years of hard work to make it a pre­mier event, one ir­re­spon­si­ble act is threat­en­ing to tar­nish the show's im­age. He re­ferred to the be­hav­iour of sec­ond placed con­tes­tant, Ravi B, who caused mem­bers of the au­di­ence to "pelt some­thing" as a sign of their dis­ap­point­ment over the re­sults, which saw Rik­ki Jai cop­ping the first $2 mil­lion Chut­ney So­ca crown. He added: "At the end of the day, peo­ple are com­ment­ing, not on the grandeur of the show, the stage or the fan­tas­tic per­for­mances, but about this in­ci­dent.

"We have worked too hard to make Chut­ney So­ca a pre­mier show and if we have to make an ex­am­ple of this in­ci­dent to send a mes­sage to oth­er artistes that this kind of be­hav­iour is un­ac­cept­able and will not be tol­er­at­ed, then so be it." Singh said he be­lieved the $2 mil­lion first prize which Gov­ern­ment promised win­ners of var­i­ous Car­ni­val com­pe­ti­tions was re­spon­si­ble for the mad­ness that fol­lowed the So­ca Chut­ney Monarch fi­nals at Skin­ner Park last Sat­ur­day. He warned pro­mot­ers of the In­ter­na­tion­al So­ca Monarch, Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Monarch and Panora­ma com­pe­ti­tions, where the $2 mil­lion of­fer has al­so been made, to take pre­cau­tions.

Singh added: "I will do my dam­age con­trol and put mea­sures in place to en­sure this nev­er hap­pens again but I do not know if Ravi B will ever re­cov­er. I think he may have de­stroyed his own promis­ing ca­reer." Singh con­firmed the po­lice have re­quest­ed a copy of the tele­vi­sion footage from the show to see if Ravi B breached any law by his ac­tion. He said he al­so met with his lawyers on Tues­day and they too were study­ing the tape with a view to tak­ing ac­tion against the artiste, in­clud­ing dis­qual­i­fy­ing him.

"This is now out of my hands. Two Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ters have called for the po­lice to lay charges against him and the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice al­so has com­ment­ed on the be­hav­iour," Singh said.

Arts and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism Min­is­ter Win­ston "Gyp­sy" Pe­ters, who, along with Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, left the show be­fore the in­ci­dent is on record as say­ing Ravi B's be­hav­iour was in­tol­er­a­ble and it was now a mat­ter for the law to take its course. Sim­i­lar sen­ti­ments were ex­pressed by Hous­ing Min­is­ter Roodal Mooni­lal, who de­scribed the in­ci­dent as a na­tion­al dis­grace. Singh ex­pressed sur­prise that po­lice of­fi­cers who were on du­ty that night did not ar­rest any­one for in­cit­ing vi­o­lence, point­ing out that, in ad­di­tion to the mis­sile pelt­ing in­ci­dent on stage, three doors at the back of the dress­ing rooms were kicked down.

ACP Fitzroy Fred­er­icks said when the po­lice looked at the tape they would de­ter­mine whether Ravi B breached any law. "We will have to look at it and see what comes out of it and if any laws were breached, then the chips will have to fall where they may," Fred­er­icks said. Ravi B has apol­o­gised for his be­hav­iour, ex­press­ing shame and re­gret.