By IANS,
Kuala Lumpur : The chief of Malaysia’s proscribed Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf) has been asked to account for money collected from the ethnic Indian community to file a suit against the British government in 2007.
Penang state’s Deputy Chief Minister P. Ramasamy, himself an ethnic Indian, Tuesday asked Hindraf chairman P. Waythamoorthy to account for RM 700,000 ($245,427), Tamil language Makkal Osai reported.
The Hindraf planned to demand heavy compensation from the British government for the perceived present-day discrimination of the ethnic Indians, a bulk of them Tamil Hindus, who came here during the British colonial era.
A letter to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown posted on a web site became the cause for the Malaysian government persecuting five Hindraf leaders – M. Manoharan, S. Kengadharan, Vasanth Kumar, P. Uthaya Kumar and Ganabatirau – on charge of sedition.
Waythamoorthy escaped, travelled to India and many countries where Tamil diaspora resides, and eventually to Britain where he lives in self-imposed exile.
Ramaswamy said Waythamoorthy went to London about two years ago but was yet to file the case seeking compensation from the British government for failing to consider the rights of the Indian community during independence talks.
Stating that it was Waythamoorthy’s duty to reveal the expenses incurred so far, Ramasamy said “he must be brave and return to Malaysia to fight for the people’s rights”, The Star newspaper said.
The jailed Hindraf leaders were released by Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak earlier this year in what he called “a spirit of reconciliation”.
Two million-plus ethnic Indians form eight percent of Malaysia’s 28 million population.