Malaysian YouTube channel ‘Sugu Pavithra’ which went viral for its easy cooking recipes has been in the news for all the wrong reasons in the past week. M Sugu who jointly ran the channel with his wife S Pavithra was recently accused of hitting his wife with a sickle in a case of domestic violence. Following the incident, Sugu has deleted all the 98 videos that had been uploaded to the channel, much to the dismay and outrage of fans.
Sugu and Parvathy have been posting videos of no-fuss yet tasty cooking recipes on their channel since January last year. Their channel grew popular and currently has 788,000 subscribers. In the course of the months, the couple uploaded 98 cooking videos.
On July 24, Sugu was charged with assaulting his wife in a hospital parking lot in Ipoh with a 26-inch sickle and a mobile phone. A drunk Sugu had attacked his wife over an argument that had occurred the day before. The 29-year-old was charged with the possession of a dangerous weapon as well as hitting Pavithra with a mobile phone and a sickle, a charge to which he later pleaded not guilty.
Sugu’s lawyer stated that the weapon was not in fact brandished at the hospital but that it was inside his car. Parvathi is said to have withdrawn the complaint of assault.
According to Malaysian state news agency Bernama, Sugu deleted the videos after the incident citing “personal” reasons. Last Tuesday, Pavithra said that she had “forgiven” her husband and that she and her husband did not require any recognition or endorsement from any political party.
Sugu, a former estate worker who had quit his job to pursue YouTubing full time, said that though deleting all the videos meant they had now lost all their income from youTube. But he also told the media that he still had hands and could work to earn his living.
“I have hands, feet, to look for a job. Even before this (becoming a YouTuber), I earned money by working,” Bernama reported Sugu as saying.
While there have been reports that the duo will soon be uploading a fresh video, their YouTube channel which was eagerly followed by thousands of fans remains vacant as of now.
