NGO ticks off Perkasa Youth for making issue of one temple allowed to stand in the Federal Administrative Centre
FMT Reporters | January 8, 2015
KUALA LUMPUR: Hindraf Makkal Sakthi, an apolitical human rights NGO working across the divide, has warned Perkasa Youth not to make an issue of one Hindu temple allowed in Putrajaya while remaining silent on the more than 25 others which were destroyed by the authorities when four large estates made way for the Federal Administrative Centre.
“The recent moronic statement by the Perkasa youth wing in questioning the building of the temple in Putrajaya is without any basis and without any historic knowledge of the land that is currently occupied by Putrajaya and Cyberjaya,” said Hindraf Chief P. Waythamoorthy in a statement.
He was delving into the history of Prang Besar, Sedgeley, Galloway and Medingley, four large estates totaling 8,000 acres which hosted more than 25 temples.
“When the Federal Government acquired the estates, thousands of plantation workers were displaced and shortchanged,” he said. “They allocated only one piece of land for the temple which is currently being built and destroyed the others.”
Besides losing their temples, their way of life, and their livelihood, the plantation workers were shortchanged, he added. “We can see the predicament of these folks in Kg Permata in Dengkil, Kajang.”
Some 400 families from the four estates were sold unfit low cost apartments that came to national attention in 2012, he recalled. “They were forced to camp in their compound as the government-built apartments were so shoddy that they had to be declared unfit for occupation.”
The fact that Putrajaya residents are mostly non-Hindus is besides the point, added Waytha. “The Federal Constitution is secular and enshrines freedom of worship.”
He charged that the existence of Perkasa and similar groups in the fringe only showed the “incompetence” of the authorities and their inability to prevent the polarisation that has taken root in the peninsula from worsening.
Waytha was made a Senator and Deputy Minister in Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak’s administration after the May 2013 General Election. He quit eight months later in protest against the Prime Minister’s apparent inability and unwillingness to control the “little Napoleons” who placed numerous obstacles in his way and made his position untenable.