Home Minister Hishamuddin Hussein’s claim that stateless Indians' applications made during a protest at Putrajaya yesterday were merely for permanent residency is a “blatant lie”, says PKR.

“Hishamuddin claimed that the National Registration Department (NRD) Putrajaya received 308 applications (yesterday), out of which 280 were for permanent resident status.

“This is a blatant and irresponsible lie. They did not fill up any applications for permanent residency,” said PKR vice president N Surendran in a statement today

NONE PKR organised a rally yesterday in Putrajaya to demand citizenship for stateless people born in Malaysia, during which the NRD eventually agreed to issue MyKad application forms to the protestors present.

Responding at a press conference yesterday, Hishamuddin had  denied the issue was about citizenship, saying that those present were merely applying for permanent residency and that most of them applied to change their red MyKad to blue MyKad.

Surendran said that all the applicants were born here and with either of one of their parents being Malaysian, they should be naturally considered Malaysian citizens according to Article 14 of the Federal constitution.

He asked Hishamuddin why the government has unlawfully denied the blue MyKad to them, and why he branded the stateless people permanent residents instead of citizens.

"Hishamuddin (in his statement yesterday) has given proof that the BN government is turning ‘stateless' Malaysian citizens into non- citizens," Surendran charged.

The PKR veep criticised NRD for its failure to prepare enough application forms for all the  protesters despite prior notification.

NONE "We challenge Hishamuddin ( right) to produce the filled application forms, which will show that they are MyKad application forms and not applications for citizenship," he said.

He slammed BN leaders for ignoring the stateless Malaysians crisis and that the federal government should take the initiative to locate and register these people as they have sufficient manpower and resources to do so.