School guard riles students with ‘keling’ remark

A security guard at a Shah Alam educational institution has courted its students’ anger for allegedly using the racial slur “keling” against a group of Indian students.

At least two handphone videos of the institution’s staff negotiating for an apology from the guard has gone viral on the internet as the result of the students’ efforts to publicise the incident.

One of the videos garnered 13,000 hits at the time of reporting.

However, no video of the alleged incident itself has surfaced.

The term "keling" is considered derogatory to the Indian community.

While specifics of what transpired during the incident is unclear, it can be gathered from various brief accounts on social media that the Indian students had asked for permission from the security guard to stay on at the school to work on their project.

While working on their project another security guard apparently confronted them on what they were doing there, and allegedly called at least one of them "keling", to which the student took offence.

This led to another student asking for an apology, which the guard apparently did not entertain civilly.

An exchange of words followed, and the institution's representatives alerted of the incident subsequently showed up to mediate.

However, it is unclear how the negotiations concluded as the footage was inconclusive.

The use of the derogatory term has often caused controversy in the past, for example during the prolonged issue surrounding the school textbook Interlok that the Indians had found insulting to their community. -Mkini