MCA today called on the authorities to take immediate action to stop all fraud by traders irrespective of their ethnicity following the Kotaraya brawl said to have started as a result of cheating.

The party also urged all the parties to stop looking at retail cheating cases from a racial angle.

"It is common knowledge that fraudulent practices and imitation goods exists in the market openly. But the authorities are not vigilant in stamping out these activities resulting in open trespass, mockery and infringement of the law," MCA Religious Harmony Bureau chairperson Ti Lian Ker said in a statement.

Consumers are frustrated as victims of such practices and the relevant enforcement agencies trusted to curb such practices are proven failures, said the MCA central committee member.

"The party is of the opinion that we must look at issues beyond racial lines. It is time to stop looking at traders as Chinese or corrupted officials as Malays," he said.

Enforcement officials, he said, should be taken to task for their lack of action to check on these traders or put a stop to their illegal activities, said Ti, who is also MCA Kuantan division chief.

"Are they on the take? Were they bribed or involved as a party in contributing to the open contravention of the law by traders?"

"If so , it is timely for MACC to move in swiftly to clean up the market of illegal activities before consumer temper flares again," he said.

"We need to move on as a nation hand-in-hand to stamp out such illegal activities. We need to move forward and walk the talk of good practices and civic-mindedness advocated by many but practised by few," he added.

To safeguard an individual’s right to public security and safety, there must be strict enforcement of the law including charging individuals making inflammatory racial statements or actions irrespective or ethnicity or creed, said Ti.

Phone incident

On Saturday, a brawl broke out at the Kotaraya complex purportedly between dissatisfied customers and traders and raised fears of a repeat of the racially-tinged Low Yat Plaza incident in July.

A customer claimed that a Kotaraya trader had detained him and insisted he pay RM10,000 for four mobile phones even though he was originally quoted a price of RM800 in total.

He said he was released after he paid RM5,000.