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Kuala Lumpur: Malaysian police interrogated an ethnic Indian leader on Thursday who helped organise a massive anti-government rally to demand equality for minority Indians, his lawyer said.
V. Ganapathy Rao of the Hindu Rights Action Force, which held the banned rally on Sunday in downtown Kuala Lumpur, was picked up by police from his office, said his lawyer, N. Surendran.
He said Ganapathy was questioned for several hours about a speech he gave earlier this month and was freed after being told to report back to the police next month.
Ganapathy and two others - brothers P. Uthayakumar and P. Wyatha Moorthy - were charged last week with sedition in connection with that speech, but they were freed on a technicality because prosecutors failed to produce a copy of the speech in Tamil, the language in which they had spoken.
In focus
The three men are the main leaders of Hindu Rights Action Force, or Hindraf, a little-known group that came into national prominence after Sunday's rally to highlight the plight of ethnic Indians.
Law Minister Nazri Aziz said some 20,000 "thugs and crooks" attended the rally. Diplomats at the scene put the number of people at 40,000.
Indians, who comprise eight per cent of Malaysia's 27 million people, say they suffer discrimination because of an affirmative action policy that favours Malay Muslims in jobs, education, business and government contracts.
Malays form about 60 per cent of the population and control the government. Ethnic Chinese are a quarter of the population and generally much more wealthy than Indians, most of whom earn low incomes and work in menial jobs.
On Wednesday, 88 ethnic Indians arrested during Sunday's rally were charged in court with taking part in an illegal gathering.
If convicted, they could be jailed for six months to two years.
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