Pakatan to probe Batu Caves temple boss’ wealth

DAP says Nadarajah’s riches will be given to poor Indians if found to be ill gotten.

SEREMBAN: Batu Caves temple chairman R Nadarajah will be among the first targets of investigation into public figures suspected of accumulating ill gotten wealth if Pakatan Rakyat takes over Putrajaya after the general election, according to DAP.

If Nadarajah’s guilt were proven, the wealth he had wrongfully acquired would be confiscated and returned to poor Indians, especially those who have disabled children, said Senawang state assemblyman P Gunasekaran, who sits in DAP’s Central Working Committee.

“Nadarajah has been the Batu Caves temple chairman for the past 37 years and we believe he has extraordinary assets in Malaysia and overseas, like in Tamil Nadu and Australia,” he said.

The Pakatan programme to investigate the assets of public figures holding extraordinary wealth was announced last weekend in Seremban Jaya, during the Pakatan rally billed as Himpunan Kebangkitan Rakyat.

Gunasekaran spoke at that rally, promising his large rain-soaked audience a “real Deepavali” with the toppling of Barisan Nasional from the seat of power.

His speech was enthusiastically received by the mixed-race crowd, estimated to number about 30,000.

DAP advisor Lim Kit Siang also delivered a well-received speech.

Lim promised that Pakatan would abolish the Automatic Enforcement System (AES) to catch traffic offenders and replace it with “our own AES system to catch individuals with extraordinary wealth”.

“We will automatically charge them in court,” he said.

“Are you ready for the change?” he asked, and the biggest ever crowd for any Pakatan ceramah in Negeri Sembilan responded with a resounding “Yes.”

Lim used the occasion to mock Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak, saying he held two records—for being the longest-serving Malaysian premier without a popular mandate, and for taking the longest time to dissolve Parliament.

He predicted that Najib would set his third record once the results of the 13th general election were in. “He will be the last prime minister from Umno.”