Indian politician Vaiko was detained by Immigration Department officers after he landed at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) this morning and has been denied entry into the country.

This was confirmed by Immigration Department director-general Mustafar Ali.

"Because he is blacklisted from entering the country. That's why he was not allowed to enter," Mustafar Ali told Malaysiakini, without giving reasons for the entry ban on Vaiko.

Vaiko is the founder and current secretary-general of the political party Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (MDMK), and had been invited to the country by Penang Deputy Chief Minister II P Ramasamy to attend his daughter's wedding banquet tomorrow.

Vaiko had been on the MH181 flight from Chennai and arrived at Terminal 1 of KLIA at 6.30am before he was detained.

News of his detention first broke when the the Twitter account Times of India-Cities tweeted about it at 2.47pm today.

"He is still at the airport, waiting for the next flight back to India," Ramasamy (photo) said when contacted earlier today.

According to a statement from Vaito's party MDMK, KLIA immigration authorities told Vaiko his name figured “in the list of persons dangerous to Malaysia" and that “he belonged to the LTTE in Sri Lanka", Indian newspaper The Indian Express reported.

A similar claim was made by independent Indian news site Republic, which tweeted that Vaiko had been questioned for “several hours on his alleged links to LTTE”.

 

 

However, Mustafar has yet to confirm this.

According to Ramasamy, Vaiko had been allowed to visit Malaysia in 2014 and 2015.

For this trip, he said, Vaiko was given an online visa approval and the Immigration Department had given the greenlight for his visit prior to his arrival.

"Vaiko is an outspoken person and politician, engaged in Tamil rights in Tamilnadu, but is not a supporter of the LTTE group," he claimed.

He added said that Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng has been in contact with the Ministry of Home Affairs on this matter.

Vaiko, whose full name is V Gopalsamy, had previously been “voluntarily in jail” from April 3 to May 25 this year, after pleading guilty to a sedition charge for a speech he made in 2009, The Times of India reported.

He was first arrested for sedition in 2008. In 2002, he was detained under the Indian Prevention of Terrorist Activities Act (Pota) for showing support for the LTTE.