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Kuala Lumpur: Malaysian police fired tear gas and used water cannons on thousands of ethnic Indians Thursday.
They were protesting discriminatory policies which they said kept them in a vicious cycle of poverty.
Police and health officials told Gulf News 15 protesters and at least two police personnel were injured in the fracas - mostly contusions and abrasions from being hit with hard objects and asthma attacks brought on by tear gas. No deaths were reported.
Organisers said at least 400 people were arrested and 19 injured. But police said more than 100 people had been detained.
Police shut down the central area surrounding the Petronas Twin Towers and the British High Commission, where an estimated 10,000 Indians gathered under the banner of a Hindu rights group early yesterday morning to deliver a petition to ask Malaysia's former colonial rulers to compensate them for bringing them here as indentured labour.
It seeks four trillion dollars' compensation for the estimated two million ethnic Indians whose ancestors were brought here as indentured labourers by Britain in the 1800s.
What initially began as a protest against the British government, who under colonial rule brought the Indians to Malaysia more than a century ago, became a protest for equality, which continued for about seven hours.
"We came here to support Hindraf [Hindu Rights Action Force] and get our rights," said Kumar, a lorry driver from the souther state of Negri Sembilan.
"The British are part of the problem, but again, the issue is we are still fighting for equal rights [to jobs] and educational rights," he said.
Malaysia has an affirmative action policy, adopted after the 1969 racial riots, favouring the Malay majority and other Bumiputeras, directly translated to "sons of soil", over other races in education, economic and financial matters.
Another protester, Ramesh Santhanam, from a city in southwest Malaysia, said the Indian community was stuck in poverty because they did not have the same access to education as Bumiputeras.
"Primary and secondary schools are not a problem. The problem is when we get to university. We are qualified but we cannot get through, because there are not enough seats [allocated for us]," he said.
According to media reports, Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi warned the Indian community against demonstrating and making seditious remarks, saying there were other ways for Malaysians to voice their opinion. Yesterday's protest marks the country's second anti-government protest within a month. Malaysia prohibits mass demonstrations without a police permit.
However, protesters said they were left with no choice.
"We have said this many times before, but the government ignored us," Ramesh said.
The exact number of arrests was not available. Three police trucks full of detainees were seen leaving the area at noon, while Sofian Mohammad Yunus, the police officer in charge of the district of Sentul, said his officers arrested seven men and one woman.
He had no information about arrests made in the other three police districts of Kuala Lumpur.
- With inputs from agencies
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