By IANS,
Kuala Lumpur : Two Tamil brothers have had their citizenship “restored” after the Malaysian government corrected what turned out to be “a technical error” in their birth certificates.
Because of the mistake, the brothers were shown having been born to the same parents just one month apart, causing suspicion among the national registration department officials.
Both were denied MyKads, the citizenship certificate in 1999 ás Om Paramjothi Kumarasamy, 21, was shown as being born just one month after his elder brother S. Om Nyananantha, 22.
Doubts were raised over whether they were indeed Malaysians born to K. Subramaniam and M. Maliga as their birth certificates stated that they were born one month apart in the same year.
It was then the brothers realised that a mistake had been made on Om Paramjothi’s birth certificate. He was born Feb 22, 1986, but it was stated as Feb 22, 1987 on the birth certificate.
Their mother Maliga, an illiterate, was not aware of the mistake.
The brothers had dropped out of school and worked as a mechanic and car park attendant as they could not pursue their studies. They could not secure better jobs without their MyKad.
They received it after two years’ effort of family friend, M. Madurai, and Malaysian Indian Congress (MIC)’s youth and social welfare bureau chief T. Mohan, the New Straits Times newspaper said Sunday.