Prior to the 14th general election, certain members of parliament (MPs) from Pakatan Harapan (PH) raised the issue of undocumented ethnic Indians in the country, claiming there were up to 300,000 of such cases.
However, Deputy Home Minister Datuk Mohd Azis Jamman recently dismissed the figure, stating that only 3,853 applications for citizenship from stateless Indians were received as of 30th May 2018, reported The Sun Daily. He told the Dewan Negara,
“Of the total, 1,638 applications have been resolved while 2,215 were being processed.”
Source: The Star
“Of course, the figure is inaccurate. Today, I state in the Dewan Negara the actual number of the undocumented status of the Indian community in our country.”
However, not all groups agree with this figure, as Lawyers for Liberty criticised the Deputy Home Minister’s statement. The rights group claims that there were thousands more citizenship applications that were rejected, with its adviser N. Surendran saying,
“Azis simply dismisses the figure of 300,000 stateless Indians which I had first suggested in 2012. That figure was a credible estimate based upon the feedback from NGOs, activists, and also population studies.”
Meanwhile, former Prime Minister and Pekan MP Najib Tun Razak accused the PH government of lying about the number of stateless Indians in Malaysia. He was quoted by Free Malaysia Today as saying,
“With this new revelation, I wonder if PH leaders will apologise for their miscalculation.”
Source: Berita Harian
He added that politicians from PH had accused Barisan Nasional of lying about these figures in the past, claiming that the number of stateless Indians was much higher than what they had reported. However, the figure provided by the Deputy Home Minister was the same given by the previous government.
Najib stated that the BN government resolved 1,638 cases and that they treated all races equally.
What are your thoughts on these figures? Let us know in the comments below!
Also read: Crowds of Stateless People Flood DBKL After Misinterpreting Kepong MB’s Viral Post
