Malaysian raid on Indian IT professionals may rip off ties

When Malaysian authorities arrested Indian software professionals in Kuala Lumpur, they would not have realized that this incidence could trigger off a war on the diplomatic front. Events like this would go down in the history and hurt Malaysia's economy badly.

Malaysian police, last Sunday, initially ordered 270 Indians out of a high rise apartment building, and then herded some 160, many of them handcuffed, into the police compound and a garage, where they had to wait for hours before most of them were freed.

While there was no conformation on the number of arrested professionals from Andhra Pradesh, sources close to the industry believe that there is a possibility of this number to be fairly high.

The locality within KL (Kuala Lumpur) Brickfield, has a majority of Indian population coming from Tamil Nadu and AP. "Out of these 10 software professionals still in custody, at least five of them are likely to be from AP," said an industry source.

Meanwhile, NASSCOM is trying its best to resolve this issue and collect information about the professionals involved in the incident. It is also trying to organize help for Indian IT professionals through Malaysia's Multimedia development Corporation.

This is an isolated incident and does not in any way reflect or signal any policy change towards Indian IT companies within the Malaysian region. 

However, industry sources have said that several of those set free from Sunday's nightmare have not yet got their passports and other important documents back. Now, the situation is that most of the IT professionals coming from the Indian origin are demoralized and are emotionally battered by this incident. This episode is likely to set back the burgeoning software industry relationship between India and South East Asia.

"The government should act immediately and take this seriously, after all they are a part of our skilled pool of manpower. We have already had a bitter experience with Indonesia when Arun Jain, CEO, Polaris was humiliated," said a source.

Unfortunately, for Malaysia, this incidence could only result in damaging results for its economy, exports, and especially the IT sector. Moreover, New Delhi's decision to take a fresh guard at the civil aviation treaty with Malaysia would be a big blow to the country's growing tourism industry.

Apart from oozing the IT dollars, the country's ambition to emerge as one of the forces to reckon with in IT arena may also experience a set back with IT professionals moving out of the corridor after this incident. 

Zia Askari

(CNS)