Commission on Indian youth gangsterism urged - Malaysiakini

A "high-powered" commission of inquiry is needed to address the issue of gangsterism involving Malaysian Indian youths, said DAP parliamentary leader Lim Kit Siang.

He said the commission - involving all sectors of Malaysian society - is needed to highlight the causes and solutions to the problem.

“The problem of (Malaysian) Indian youth gangsterism has worsened in the past few years, underlined by the fact that the crime rate and the criminal involvement of (Malaysian) Indian youths are completely out of proportion with their numbers and (ethnic) Indian percentage in the multi-racial Malaysian population,” said Lim (left) at a parliamentary roundtable yesterday.

He added that ethnic Indians had been forced out of estates into low-productivity jobs in urban areas.

This, he added, “launched them on  the vicious socio-economic cycle resulting in the very serious phenomenon of Indian youth gangsterism today, aggravated by poverty and long-standing socio-economic and educational marginalisation and discrimination”.

He said the government must convince all stakeholders that the issue is not merely an ethnic Indian problem but a national one, and needs to be tackled with a holistic approach that includes socio-economic and educational components.