Hindraf leader’s passport still valid, says Hisham

(The Star) – Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf) chairman P. Waytha Moorthy can ask the Malaysian High Commission in Britain to return his passport and come home but he could be charged if authorities here find that he has broken local laws, said Home Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Tun Hussein.

Hishammuddin, who showed journalists copies of pages of the Waytha Moorthy’s passport that listed the expiry date, said checks had shown that the passport was valid until Oct 10 next year and the chairman of the banned movement should therefore have no problems using his travel documents.

“Waytha Moorthy had surrendered his passport to the High Commission in Britain and there is no move by the Government here to revoke it,” Hishammuddin told a press conference after chairing his ministry’s weekly post Cabinet meeting.

Asked why Waytha Moorthy had surrendered his passport and then claimed it was confiscated, Hishammuddin said he was not aware of the actual reasons but the Hindraf chairman might have surrendered it after receiving “good offers” only to realise later that they were not as good as they had initially seemed.

He said Waytha Moorthy might have claimed that the passport was confiscated as he was too embarrassed to admit that he had surrendered it himself.

On another matter, Hishammuddin said his ministry would be presenting to the Cabinet in two weeks’ time the design and costing of mobile police stations that would be stationed at the 50 crime hotspots in Kuala Lumpur, Selangor, Johor and Penang.

“I also proposed to the Cabinet that we buy motorcycles to help with efforts to monitor and control crime in the hotspots especially after the volunteer policemen from Rela and the Civil Defence have been deployed to all the affected areas in about three months’ time,” he said.