PSB Youth chief Johnical Rayong Ngipa said those responsible for spreading the news might have been threatened by the party’s growth.

“Maybe they felt threatened that a lot of Dayaks are joining our party,” he told reporters outside the police station here.

The issue arose after a screenshot of the article titled “Wong Soon Koh: Dayaks are stupid with low IQ and easy to be manipulated” purportedly published by FMT went viral.

It was slammed by Wong, the PSB president, who said it was fake news.

He said a July 13 article by FMT titled “PSB backs Wong Soon Koh on whether to quit Sarawak Cabinet” had been doctored to imply that he had belittled the Dayaks.

Rayong, who is also Engkelili assemblyman, said increasing numbers of Sarawakians had been joining PSB.

“Last week I was surprised that in my constituency alone, over 2,000 people applied to join.

“To date, there are almost 6,000 PSB members in my constituency,” he said, adding that PSB would contest at least 60 seats in the coming state election.

PSB member Abang Mohd Tosen meanwhile said the claims that Wong had criticised the Dayak community were slanderous.

“This allegation is very serious, bearing in mind that Wong was a senior state minister who held various ministerial posts in the state Cabinet before his resignation in August.

“We don’t know who is behind this. We can’t blame anybody but we have lodged a police report,” he added.

“We want the police and the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission to investigate this matter so that we can take legal action against these people.”