PUTRAJAYA (Dec 12): The National Registration Department today opened up ad hoc counters at its national headquarters to immediately register a large group of stateless persons, mostly Indian Malaysians,  who had gathered outside the building to highlight their predicament.

They were among more than 300 people, led by Pakatan Rakyat politicians, who had marched for about 100 metres towards the NRD headquarters to protest against alleged denial of the rights of stateless people by the authorities.  

About 10 Pakatan leaders, including PKR vice-president N Surendran and the party's legal aid bureau chief, Latheefa Koya, then proceeded to have an hour-long meeting with NRD director-general Datuk Jariah Mohd Said.

Speaking to reporters later, Surendran said NRD initially wanted to give citizenship applications forms to the stateless persons but after a strong protest by the leaders, Jariah agreed to issue them MyKad (a blue identity card) application forms.

"They are already citizens of this country. They were born here, they live here. They do not know any other place as home so we demanded that NRD give them blue MyKad forms," he said.

He said that "thousands" had gathered today, out of which 'hundreds' were stateless people, including a few Malay and Chinese MyPR (red identity card) holders.

He insisted that the protesters would not budge until every stateless person had filed up and handed over their forms.

Surendran also said that PKR stood by its estimation that there were 300,000 stateless persons in the country, despite Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak's claim that the actual figure was only 9,000.

"You can see from today, these hundreds of people have come just after a short notice. When the government conducted its MyDaftar (campaign last February) it was registering almost 2,000 stateless people a day. But they stopped after eight days. So we stand by our figure of 300,000," he said.

Stressing that it was not Pakatan's duty to gather all the stateless people for the NRD, Surendran called on the agency to be more proactive in tackling this issue.

Latheefa added that NRD should conduct an intensive mobile registration exercise in areas with large numbers of stateless Indian Malaysians, as they did in Sabah and Sarawak.

PKR's Subang MP R Sivarasa, meanwhile, asked why the Mydaftar campaign, conducted by the Special Implementation Taskforce on the Indian Community under the PM's Office, stooped its work after eight days when the problem was hardly solved.

Other Pakatan leaders present included PKR vice president Datuk Chua Jui Meng, PAS MPs Khalid Samad (Shah Alam), Dzulkefly Ahmad (Kuala Selangor), Siti Mariah Mahmud (Kota Raja), DAP MPs Charles Santiago (Klang), M Kulasegaran (Ipoh Barat) and M Manogaran (Teluk Intan).

Speaking to fz.com, 67-year-old Murugiah Archuna Kavandan, who travelled from Alor Setar for today's protest gathering, said he did not understand why the NRD refused to issue him a MyKad  although his wife and all five children have MyKads.

"I was born in Kedah and within this year I had gone to the NRD about seven or eight times. I misplaced my birth certificate while moving houses when I was young and that has caused me dearly till now.

"I also applied through the Mydaftar programme but it has been six months and I have not heard a word," he said.

Murugiah, who uses a cane to walk, said that life was very difficult without a blue identity card

"I tend other people's gardens for work but now I am not feeling well, so there is no income. If I had a blue IC, I would have at least received a pension.

"At my age I should have at least voted several times but I have not voted even once in an elections.

"If my predicament is solved, I would slaughter a goat to offer thanks or get together with my grandchildren and cut a cake," he added.