"Thousands more who were born here but do not have a MyKad.”

(Jun,4) The Home Ministry has been asked to explain why 1,758 people who had been cared for in government-operated welfare homes have grown up to be designated as stateless individuals.

PKR vice-president N Surendran said today that an immediate explanation is required from Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein.

“… This is supposed to be the responsibility of the Home Ministry and the government,” he said when contacted.

Welfare organisation Pertubuhan Kebajikan dan Sosial Malaysia claimed last Friday that the Social Welfare Department had failed to sort out the birth certificates of Malaysian children abandoned as orphans.

Its president Muhammad Khairul Hafiz Abdullah – one of those affected – said he had been briefly jailed because he did not have personal documents, but later managed to get a blue Mykad and has since been acknowledged to be a citizen.

This, Surendran said, has also proved PKR’s claims that a substantial number of people from the Indian Malaysian community do not have a MyKad and, by extension, citizenship.

“The NGO’s statement has proved my previous allegation. These people do not have any parents, they’re orphans (therefore do not have the documents or parents to prove that they are citizens).

“If the (number of) stateless people registered under the NGO is already 1,758, certainly there are thousands more who were born here but do not have a MyKad.”

Surendran had previously claimed that there were at least 300,000 Indian Malaysians who hold a red or green MyKad, or do not have any documents to prove their claim to citizenship. -Mkini