Tale of a busload full of Bangladeshi voters

 

Anas Zubedy 

A friend’s family friend owns a tour company. Here’s their story.

1. On May 5, 2013, A tour bus with 42 Indian national tourists traveling from Johor to Kuala Lumpur for a short KL tour. And then From KL they were going to Genting Highlands. The bus is a bonafide tourist coach.
2. While in KL the tour guide who is a Malaysian wanted to vote. He was registered at Bukit Indah, Ampang. He got permission from his tour company to stop by and vote. Therefore he parked the bus full of the Indian national tourists about 500 metres from the poll station (Bukit Indah school). the bus driver and the tourists waited in the bus.
3. While waiting for the tour guide to finish, some members of PKR and PAS (they were wearing tshirts with the party logo) asked the driver to come down and explain why they were there, in the meantime, the rest of the PR members went into the bus and started questioning the passengers in a very harsh and rude manner, accusing that they are illegal voters.
4. They forced all the passengers to come down from the bus, but the bus driver insisted that the tourists stay in the bus. Then PR people insisted on holding up the tourists and the bus.
5. Then they started arguing and yelling at each other. The bus owner came. By this time, there was a huge crowd outside the bus. All from the same political party. The youth members were the rudest ones. Without questioning, they assumed those are phantom voters.
6. Then they started spreading the news around, taking pictures video, uploading it on FB, etc - saying that there are phantom voters in Ampang.
7. They almost got into a physical fight, but the bus owner managed to sort everything out and the PR people escorted the bus out of Ampang.
8. This entire commotion went on for about 1 hour and no policemen came even though the police station is only about 150 metres away.

My note:

My dear Malaysians, we can be better than this. We have the capacity to respect foreigners. Even those who come here to make a living in our nation of plenty as labourers; remember, many of our forefathers were just like them. We need to heal ourselves from hatred, arrogance and racism.

Thank you.

Anas Zubedy

Kuala Lumpur