Furious over arrests, Delhi may clip Malaysian wings

South Block asked Civil Aviation Secretary K Roy Paul on Monday evening to take a fresh look at the obligations of both parties in the treaty. The extension of additional landing facility at Kolkata too flows from this treaty, signed a couple of years ago but cleared by the Union Cabinet this January.

The strong Indian reaction to the Kuala Lumpur incident was reflected in today’s meeting between visiting Malaysian Entrepreneur Development Minister Mohammed Nazri Abdul Aziz and Union Ministers Arun Jaitely and Kashi Ram Rana.

Jaitely and Rana confined the talks to the harassment of Indian professionals. ‘‘We have expressed our anguish and concern over the incident. Indian nationals in large numbers with valid visas were detained and ill-treated,’’ Jaitley told reporters after the meeting.

Aziz, on his part, said he had assured New Delhi that Malaysia would look into ‘‘alleged ill-treatment which is not acceptable to us also. If true, we will take action against those concerned.’’

‘‘The drive is not directed against Indians. We have an ongoing campaign against illegal immigrants and hiccups do happen in such operations.’’ Apparently referring to India’s sharp reaction, Aziz said ‘‘our bilateral relations should not get off-focussed by this incident.’’

New Delhi had a good mind to withdraw the invitation to Aziz who flew in early today. In fact, South Block advised both Jaitley and Rana to discuss nothing but the ill-treatment of Indian citizens.

Reports from Kuala Lumpur indicate that four Indians are still in police custody but it has been conveyed through diplomatic channels that inquiries against only a lone IT professional could be proceeded against.

India has asked Malaysia for a full-fledged report on the incident and the review of airlinks could just be the first step. Under the civil aviation bilateral treaty, India extended landing facilities initially at Mumbai, Hyderabad and Chennai in exchange for similar facilities at Kuala Lumpur, Penang and Langkawi.

But Civil Aviation authorities decided recently to extend these facilities to Malaysian Airlines at Kolkata. Kuala Lumpur had been lobbying hard for this additional service. This strong Indian reaction, sources said, would also impact Malaysia’s bid to obtain an increase in its seat sharing arrangement with Air-India.

As of now, the Malaysian national carrier appears to have an advantage over Air-India in the existing arrangement. While Air-India operates three flights a week from Mumbai to Kuala Lumpur, it has 40 per cent seats on Malaysian Airlines flights operating on the same route for the remaining three days in the week. Indian Airlines too has a daily service from Chennai to Kuala Lumpur. This apart, there’s no flight operating to Penang and Langkawi.

In contrast, Malaysian Airlines has 18 flights operating to Delhi, Chennai, Hyderabad and Bangalore. New Delhi has also decided to look afresh at some of the extra concessions it planned to give Malaysia on its export of palm oil to India.

Last year, India granted 10-per cent duty exemption on Malaysian export of palm oil and there were hopes of more such concessions.

While the suggestion was to review all concessions to Malaysia on its palm oil exports, the Finance Ministry wanted it reconsidered as it could adversely impact edible oil prices in the domestic market.

This apart, Malaysian companies have been investing heavily in India’s I-T sector. Apart from a number of IT contracts on the anvil, Malaysia has business opportunity worth $ 300 million in India.

In New Delhi, doubts are being raised in the Govt about the motive of the Malaysian police which picked up the Indians intentionally on Sunday, knowing fully well that Monday was a local holiday and they wouldn’t be able to get out before Tuesday.

According to internal govt documents, one of the reasons behind the maltreatment of the Indians could be the fact that 40,000 expatriate Indian IT professionals had been hired by Malaysia recently to build their New Information Technology corridor.

This was a cause of frustration amongst the local population ‘‘as the Indians were considered to be more skilled.’’ This is the second incident in which Indian IT professionals have been targetted abroad with the Polaris top brass being detained recently in Indonesia over a commercial dispute.

The IT community in India has now united to take a stand against such incidents under NASSCOM. While condemning the incident, NASSCOM categorically stated that none of the Indians working in Malaysia were illegal entrants.

‘‘NASSCOM has taken a very serious view of this incident and is currently in the process of collecting details of the entire episode and the reason behind it, including the names of the companies whose officials have faced this harassment,’’ said a NASSCOM statement quoting president Kiran Karnik. (with bureau reports)