Umno Deputy Youth Leader and the prime minister's son-in-law Khairy Jamaluddin has offended Hindus and the Indian community by attacking Indian news vendors at the recent Umno general assembly.

We are outraged when Khairy blamed Indians as the cause why Umno president Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's presidential address at the assembly was not published on Thursday which was Deepavali Day and a press shutdown day.

It is foolish to blame news vendors for your own foolishness to fix the Umno assembly on a Deepavali day. Why were the Umno officers so slack? Everybody knows that Deepavali is a press shutdown day and there will be no newspapers. But Umno and Abdullah when ahead and now blame the vendors.

Khairy said, "Today is the first time the Umno president's speech is not being read by the masses because a particular ethnic group controls the distribution line of newspapers and they are on holiday."

Yes, true. Who is too blame, Umno or the news vendors?

The holding of the Umno assembly during Deepavali - a public holiday - had also upset many Malaysians, both Hindus and non-Hindus, as it seems to point to a growing pattern of insensitivity by the powers-that-be in the country.

If the MIC, MCA or Gerakan had held their annual party assemblies during Hari Raya holidays, it would have been regarded as highly insensitive, offensive and unacceptable and undoubtedly pressures would have been brought to bear to move such assemblies to another date.

Why wasn't the same consideration given in the case of this year's Umno assembly clashing with Deepavali as the excuse that Abdullah had a "tight schedule" is simply just unacceptable?

News vendors wake up at 3am to start distributing newspapers from 5am. They work very hard and their labour should be respected not belittled. Khairy should apologise to the Indian community for his uncalled-for and most unwarranted aspersions on the Indian community yesterday.