The government should immediately suspend the 67 police officers involved in a Sunday raid that arrested scores of Indian nationals pending the outcome of investigations, said DAP national chairperson Lim Kit Siang today.

He said the party welcomed Acting Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's intervention amid a "worsening crisis and diplomatic row" between Malaysia and India.

Abdullah yesterday said he had directed Inspector-General of Police Norian Mai to personally investigate allegations of harassment by 270 Indian nationals, mostly IT professionals, who were detained o­n suspicion of being illegal immigrants.

Lim said Abdullah's statement was the "first, correct, proper and responsible reaction" regarding the incident thus far.

"The government and police must show that they are serious and are no more involved in a game of foot-dragging," he said in a statement.

Among the measures to be taken were sending a special police team to record individual police reports from the Indian professionals regarding their mistreatment, and replacing their defaced employment visas for free, he added.

Apology

He said the government must issue an apology to the Indian government for the incident and compensate those professionals for what happened.

He called o­n the government to also review the "maladroit and insensitive responses" o­n the incident from government and police officials such as Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar, Deputy Home Minister Zainal Abidin Zin and Kuala Lumpur city deputy police chief Ahmad Nahrin Idrus.

"Their statement that an initial investigation showed the police did nothing wrong was most outrageous and was no different from throwing salt o­n the festering wound of Malaysia-India relations," said Lim.

He said Parliament should review a debate Thursday when Barisan Nasional backbenchers' leader Mohd Zin Mohamed, in his response to criticisms from opposition, said the allegations about police mistreating the Indian nationals were "all lies".

"There should be a mechanism to give timely information to members of Parliament of latest developments so that they can contribute to resolving national problems rather than causing more national embarrassments," he said.

Emergency meeting

The DAP chief also said the National Information Technology Council (NITC) should convene an emergency meeting to discuss the damage of the mass arrests of Indian IT professionals to Malaysia's plan to become a regional IT hub.

He said the effectiveness of Cabinet meetings every Wednesday must be reviewed as this week's meeting had overlooked the repercussions of the arrests o­n the country's international reputation and bilateral relationship with India in particular, development of the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) and economic recovery plans.

"The Cabinet must establish a committee to eliminate the 'First class infrastructure, third world mentality' malaise diagnosed by Abdullah," he said.

The Malaysian police made headlines in the international media when they arrested 270 Indian nationals in a the Palm Court condominium in Brickfields, Kuala Lumpur.

The detainees were later quoted as saying that they were "handcuffed and made to kneel or sit in the police car park, some were slapped and kicked".

India not happy

Some claimed that they were ordered to do sit-ups, stripped to their underwear, slapped and kicked by police officers, while a few alleged that their visas o­n their passports were damaged by the arresting authorities.

Indian High Commissioner to Malaysia Veena Sikri had said her government was "not happy" with the way the Indian nationals were treated by the police and demanded an explanation.

Several of the Indian nationals lodged a complaint with the National Human Rights Commission (Suhakam) over their arrests.

India yesterday called off a scheduled visit by Health Minister Chua Jui Meng to New Delhi.