A group of disgruntled Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) students plan to file a law suit against the campus authorities for raiding their dormitory in the run-up to last week's campus polls.

Malaysiakini understands that the students have demanded three university officials - through letters of demand - to tender a public apology before next Tuesday or face legal action.

The students, who are linked to the 'anti-establishment' camp - a loose grouping of activists critical of university and government policies - were also outraged by the profanities hurled against the students during the raid on the women's dormitory.

The polls, which concluded on Wednesday, saw 'anti-establishment' students routed by the 'pro-establishment' camp in many public universities nationwide.

The university authorities have been accused of helping 'pro-establishment' students in the polls.

In UKM, 'pro-establishment' candidates won 26 seats, while the 'anti-establishment' team, five.

'Underground activities'

According to the complainants, the residential college authorities at UKM's Kolej Keris Mas raided at least five female students' rooms around 12 midnight on Aug 31.

The rooms were raided on the grounds that the students were planning "underground activities".

Sources told malaysiakini that during the raid, the team searched the rooms and confiscated the students' personal computers, mobile phones, student identity cards and personal notebooks.

"They checked the calls recorded in the mobile phones and took away the SIM cards," said one source who requested for anonymity.

After the raid, two residential college officials were said to have also hurled indecent words against a Malay Malaysian female student in front of her fellow colleagues.

Among others, they were accused to have called the student "pelacur", "anak luar nikah", "babi" (prostitute, illegitimate child and pig).

It is learnt that the female student was an 'anti-establishment' candidate in last Wednesday's campus election, where she lost.

A week after the incident, the harassed students engaged several lawyers to pursue the case.

"The female student is now under great emotional and mental stress. She now feels very insecure about staying in the university's college," a source said, adding that the midnight raid was an attempt to intimidate and sow fear among students in the run-up of the hotly contested campus elections.

Three conditions

The students are demanding the campus officials to meet three conditions, which were outlined in their letters of demand delivered on Tuesday, or they would take legal action against them.

They are a written public apology to be displayed on the university's bulletin boards for seven consecutive days, the return of their confiscated belongings, and claims for damages amounting to RM10,000.

Last year, also in the run-up to campus polls, students at another public university - University Pertanian Malaysia - had cried foul over midnight raids by the campus authorities on their hostel rooms as well as the student representative council for allegedly planning 'underground activities'.

Like UKM, the students whose rooms were raided are members of the Muslim Undergraduates Association (Persatuan Mahasiswa Islam, or PMI), which is believed to have ties with the opposition PAS.

'Pro-establishment' candidates - many of whom are linked to the ruling parties - took control of most of the major universities after Wednesday's campus election, which have been marred by boycotts and allegations of irregularities by their rivals.

Over the past few years, 'pro-establishment' students have progressively ousted 'anti-establishment' students from some of the key universities' students representative councils.