New Delhi/Kuala Lumpur: The clashes between ethnic Indians and police in Malaysia have become a major cause of concern for the Indian government.
On Tuesday, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi wrote a letter to Prime Minister Manomhan Singh, expressing deep concern at the treatment meted out to Malaysian ethnic Indian community.
This after about 10,000 ethnic Indians clashed with police at a rally in downtown Kuala Lumpur on Sunday to demand economic equality.
They were protesting the affirmative action policy of the Malaysian government. They were also supporting a $4 trillion lawsuit filed in London in August by Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf), a rights group demanding that Britain compensate Malaysian Indians for bringing their ancestors to the country as indentured laborers and exploiting them.
The police detained over 240 ethnic Indians.
Indians say discrimination persists in Malaysia because of the policy favoring Malays, who form about 60 per cent of Malaysia's 27 million people. They also complain of religious discrimination, citing state authorities' demolition of several Hindu temples in recent years.
More than two-thirds of ethnic Indians, who are mostly Hindus and constitute about eight percent of the population, live in poverty.
Street rallies are rare in Malaysia, which prides itself on communal and political peace.
The letter written by Karunanidhi is understandable in the light of the fact that Tamils constitute the largest percentage among the Indian minority in Malaysia.
Karunanidhi has pointed out in the letter that the people of Tamil Nadu were disturbed over the Malaysian police using water cannons and tear-gas shells against the Indian demonstrators.
Pointing out that the protests were largely peaceful, Karunanidhi wrote, "The protesters were carrying poster-size pictures of Mahatma Gandhi.”
He also urged Prime Minister Singh and the Central government to take appropriate action to end the sufferings and ill treatment meted out to Malaysian Tamils.
Meanwhile, Malaysia's Pime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said he may invoke a security law allowing indefinite detention without trial to curb street demonstrations, after two violent protests stunned the normally peaceful country.
''When it is appropriate to use it, it will be used,'' Badawi was quoted as saying by the national Bernama news agency.
Bernama quoted Abdullah as saying that the decades-old Internal Security Act, which allows for detention without trial, ''is a preventive measure to spare the nation from untoward incidents that can harm the prevailing peace and harmony and create all sorts of adverse things.''
''I don't know (when to invoke the ISA), but ISA will be there,'' he was quoted as saying.
An aide to Abdullah confirmed his comments, but could not give further details.
The Bar Council, which represents about 12,000 lawyers in Malaysia, warned that using the ISA would be ''retrogressive, counter-productive, and smacks of extreme high-handedness.''
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