40 red MyKad holders given runaround

A crowd of about 200 supporters joined 40 stateless residents in a demonstration led by PKR at the National Registration Department (NRD) in Kulim yesterday to press their right to be given blue MyKads.

Led by vice-president N Surendran, Kedah PKR chief Wan Salleh Wan Isa and central committee member Latheefa Koya, the demonstrators turned up to give moral support to the 40 red MyKad holders.

All but one of the red MyKad holders were Indian and resident in the Kulim and nearby Padang Serai towns. The exception was a young Chinese female.

Surendran claimed that all the red Mykad holders were born in Malaysia and should have been made citizens by operation of the law.

A delegation led by Surendran asked to see the director of the state registration department but succeeded only in meeting the deputy chief of the Kulim registration department, one Puan Satiakala.

Surendran said that when the officer agreed to begin the process of registering the stateless residents, she gave them forms to fill that are normally provided to foreign-born residents of the country.

"This was the wrong form to give them because these people are not residents who were born in foreign countries.

"They are Malaysian-born and should have been citizens by the normal operation of the law," he argued.

Next stop - PMO

PKR are locked in a tussle with the Youth wing of MIC over the issue of stateless Indians.

Whereas PKR claim that the number of such people in Malaysia is between 200,000 to 300,000 people, MIC put the figure at some 45,000.

Surendran believes the actual numbers are closer to PKR's estimates because, he said, "you can encounter stateless residents in every corner of the Peninsula."

He said his party will organise for the delegation he led at Kulim to come to Putrajaya where they will press their case for citizenship at the Prime Minister's Office.

A recent visit to the same place led to a violent affray between members of the PKR delegation and an MIC team.

A PKR divisional leader suffered a facial broken bone in the contretemps.