MIC Youth claims Indians being racially profiled

MIC Youth today described the government and police as having adopted racial profiling in combatting gangsterism. which led to discrimination toward the Indian Malaysian community.

MIC Youth considered the allegation by the Home Ministry that  28,926 Indian Malaysian were involved in gangsterism as alarming and something needs to be done, said its secretary C Sivarraajh.

“We have to do something. MIC should take the lead and work with the police. We want not only to solve the problem, but also to look at the preventive measures,” he said after handling over a memorandum to the police at Bukit Aman earlier today.

“(However,)we seriously disagree with racial profiling (by the police and government), because this will give  a bad perception and bad image about us overall, as though there’s a lot of Indian gangsters,” Sivaraajh (centre in photo) said.

“What they did by racial profiling is going to give a big impact on Indian students, and affect them at the school level,” he said.

In the memorandum tendered to inspector-general of police (IGP) Khalid Abu Bakar, MIC Youth has urged the police not to regards Indian Malaysians as gangsters, he said.

“The 28,000 only consists of 1.4 percent of the two million Indian Malaysian population. The other 98 percent are good people,” he said.

He claimed that the community was discriminated against as a few Indian Malaysians spotted in a vehicle were commonly stopped by the authorities.

The wing has set up a task force to study the impact of such racial profiling and what Ops Cantas Khas was doing, he said.

“We will give the police (a report on the study) to the IGP, in a meeting by (Sept) 14,” he said.

He also wants the police to substantiate its claims of 28,926 Indian Malaysians being involved in gangsterism, said Sivarraajh.

The wing also suggested that the Royal Malaysian Police (PDRM) promote more Indian Malaysian police officers, as they know the community’s sentiments and can further help to deter their youths from gangsterism, he said.

In a press conference yesterday, the Home Ministry had named 49 organisations, which had a total membership of 40,313, as being banned.

The ministry even went into the ethnic details - Indian Malaysians (28,926), Chinese Malaysians (8,214), Malay Malaysians (1,923), Sabahans (329) and Sarawakians (921).

We wish to put things right, say cops

“Yes, (we came out with details on each ethnic group) as we want to tackle how far these communities were involved in crimes,” said Abdul Jalil Hassan, the principal assistant director of Bukit Aman Anti-Vice, Gambling and Secret Societies Division, at Bukit Aman today.

“It’s not our intention to punish (them), but we wish to make things right,” he said, adding that the police wanted to help to put the youngsters in the community on the right track, if they know the situation in each ethnic group.

Abdul Jalil (left) denied that the police were discriminating against Indian Malaysians.

To prove that, he said the police also checked on 33,900 Malay Malaysians and 17,975 Chinese Malaysians out of a total of 75,574 people probed under Ops Cantas Khas since Oct 17, he said.

“Sixty to 70 percent of those checked and arrested were Malays. In fact, all the ethnic groups are involved in gangsterism... If anyone claims we  just targetting Indians, that’s not right,” he claimed.