Three Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) students have been given a warning and fined RM100 each after a disciplinary hearing today found them guilty for taking  part in a rally  last month to protest water supply disruption on campus.

They were the first batch of 13 UKM students to face disciplinary hearings for taking part in the rally. The fate of the remaining eight will be decided after hearings to be held over the next two months.    

UKM Student's Association (PMUKM) president Muhammad Sallehuddin Khalid was the first of the 13 students to receive his sentence.

Of the remaining two of the five today, one was let off with just a warning while the other was found not guilty.

Most of the UKM students have declined to be named.

One of the students given a warning and a fine, Muhammad Syahir Rahimi, said they were considering raising this matter in a court of law outside the campus.

"We want to get our punishments cancelled, because we believe we did not do anything wrong," Syahir told Malaysiakini .

The students are also dissatisfied with the "unprofessional" manner in which UKM has been handling the hearings.

Another of the students, Rahmat Ikhsan, said they hired representatives to help them with legal issues in the hearing.

"However, we were told during the start of the case today that our representatives can only be our moral support," he claimed.

Malaysiakini is currently trying to contact UKM for its comment.

The UKM13, as the students are known, held a rally on May 27 over water disruption issues in their campus.

Some areas in their residential area had been without water for as long as two weeks.

'Solve problem, not punish students'

Syahir, who is also a spokesperson for Gabungan Mahasiswa UKM (GMUKM), said their problem with water supply had been going on and off for the past year.

He claimed that the university provided lorries bringing water to the affected areas in the campus.

However, this was not a good or sustainable solution to their problem, Syahir said, which was why they held the rally to try to get the relevant authorities to come up with a better solution.

They had even appealed to Serdang MP Ong Kian Ming (photo) to intervene in the matter, with little success.

Ong had then criticised UKM for its treatment of the students, saying that the university should be working to solve the problem instead of punishing the students.

"As long as this sort of attitude prevails in our public universities, whatever talk of trying to attain the status of a world class university will be empty rhetoric, devoid of substance," Ong had said.