Malaysian Indian MP arrested during protest meet

By IANS
Monday, August 23, 2010

IPOH - Ethnic Indian lawmaker M. Kulasegaran was arrested and handcuffed at a police station here while taking part in a protest meeting, reports said Monday.

Kulasegaran and his former political secretary P. Sugumaran were arrested in Sitiawan Sunday after a commotion erupted when police refused to allow a large group of protesters into the police station.

The police said it could not allow everybody to enter and this irked the protestors.

The duo were released several hours later, The Star said Monday.

The protestors, comprising members of the Dinding India Association (DIA), wanted to lodge a police report Sunday over alleged mismanagement in their movement.

Sitiawan has recently witnessed protests over a government move to take over a Tamil school. Following appeals from the association and the Indian community, the government last week reversed its decision.

Kulasegaran, who is vice chairman of the opposition Democratic Action Party (DAP), said he and Sugumaran had accompanied DIA president P. Shanmugan to lodge the report.

He alleged that some unidentified policemen had uttered a racist remark which angered the group.

Kulasegaran also claimed that Sugumaran was assaulted by the police while in custody.

He said Manjung police official Mohammed Jamil Osman had apologised and said the police had wrongly handcuffed him.

Osman declined to comment over the alleged racist remark made. However, he denied Suguma­ran had been assaulted while in custody.

Filed under: Accidents and Disasters

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