The police today raided the office of Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf) legal adviser P Uthayakumar’s legal firm in Bangsar "to look for seditious material" to assist their investigation into an alleged sedition case.

Hindraf chairperson P Waythamoorthy’s office in Kemayan Square, Seremban, Negri Sembilan, was simultaneoulsy raided for the same reason.

In Bangsar, a 10-member police team led by ASP Redzaime Abdul Hamid arrived at Uthayakumar’s office at about 3pm and produced a search warrant before beginning their search.

Uthayakumar was in police custody up to 5pm today, ostensibly being investigated for sedition.

According to Uthayakumar’s employee K Vasantha Kumar, the raiding party from the Dang Wangi district headquarters had wanted to seize “any computer devices to assist investigation into the sedition charges”.

But staff-members were adamantly against the confiscation of the items as they contain “private and confidential information on clients”.

“Who will bear responsibility if any of the clients’ information is lost once the items are in the hands of the police?” asked Vasantha Kumar, who is also the chairperson of the Hindraf organising committee.

When the staff insisted that the search be confined to the office, an argument broke out between the police and the staff. Eventually, Redzaime brought in the cyber-forensic team to extract data from the computer hard-drive as a compromise.

Data extracted

Vasantha Kumar later held a short press conference to state his dissatisfaction with the way the raid was conducted.

“ASP Redzaime tried to exert his authority by insisting that our computers be taken to the police station, despite the legal consequences of tampering with private and confidential information of our clients,” he said.

After completing the data extraction from Uthayakumar’s computer, the police left the office at about 5pm.

In Seremban, however, police confiscated Waythamoorty’s office laptop and a computer amidst the same concerns for the confidentiality of client-related information.

This is the second police raid on their offices in the past two months.

On Nov 19, a Dang Wangi police team conducted a raid to look for a publication entitled '50 Years of Violation of the Federal Constitution by the Malaysian Government'.

The 41-page booklet gives a detailed account of issues discussed by the Reid Commission at every meeting and memoranda submitted by various organisations in the run-up to the framing of the Federal Constitution.

The police officers spent about an hour at Uthayakumar's office before leaving at about 4.30pm without seizing anything on that occasion.

Uthayakumar faces two charges - one in Klang for allegedly making a seditious speech during a Hindraf function and another in Kuala Lumpur for allegedly writing a seditious letter .

It is learnt that he may face a third sedition charge.

Brothers Uthayakumar and Waythamoorthy are the prime movers of Hindraf which organised a rally on Nov 25 in Kuala Lumpur.

It saw some 30,000 Indian Malaysians gathering to back an attempt to submit a memorandum to Queen Elizabeth via the British High Commission. Dozens of them now face charges.