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Verdict on Hindraf plea set for February 26

SINGAPORE: The High Court in Kuala Lumpur has set February 26 for delivering the judgment on a batch of habeas corpus petitions for the release of five detained leaders of the Hindu Rights Action Force.

The five — P. Uthayakumar, V. Ganapati Rao, M. Manoharan, R. Kengadharan, and T. Vasanthakumar — were detained on December 13 last year for a period of two years under Malaysia’s Internal Security Act (ISA).

They are being held without charges and trial as permissible under the ISA on grounds of national security “concerns.”

These five Hindraf leaders, and the group’s chairman P. Waytha Moorthy, now camping in London, had spearheaded a mass protest rally in Kuala Lumpur on November 25 last year.

The rally, for which permission had been denied through a pre-emptive court order, was designed to focus attention on the alleged “marginalisation” of the ethnic Indian minority in Malaysia and demand “equal rights” for it on a par with the majority Malays.

It was submitted on behalf of the petitioners that they were denied the right to defend themselves during a mandatory pre-detention police probe which, according to them, was not carried out at all.

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