Former Ops Lalang detainee's daughter reminds Dr M of dictatorial past

Former Ops Lalang detainee's daughter reminds Dr M of dictatorial past


Former lawmaker Kasthuri Patto launched an acerbic broadside against Dr Mahathir Mohamad, stating that the 97-year-old politician does not possess the moral authority to comment on curbing dissent.

She recalled how her late father P Patto, who was a DAP MP, had been detained under the now-defunct Internal Security Act (ISA) during the infamous Operasi Lalang in 1987 when Mahathir was serving his first tenure as prime minister.

“I am a child of your Operasi Lalang, which you bear full responsibility as home minister and prime minister. I was eight, my sister six.

“You took my father away and many other fathers and mothers. Robbed (them) from their families because they dissented against you and not Malaysia,” she tweeted.

Kasthuri (above) recollected her father’s anguish when he was unable to accompany her sister on the first day of school when she entered Standard One in 1988.

 The late P Patto

“You detained them for months, years, and decades using the draconian ISA, while never allowing them to be tried in court. It was an iron-fisted rule.

“You curbed freedom of speech, assembly, expression, and targeted the press as your enemies. You using the (police) special branch, to target politicians, their families and friends are vivid in my mind,” she said, adding that there were stories of people being imprisoned for merely having a copy of the DAP organ, The Rocket.

In 2017, Mahathir accepted the blame for the detention of over 100 activists, journalists and opposition politicians during Operasi Lalang and expressed regret that some of them were tortured.

However, he insisted that the security crackdown was not his decision.


‘A national disappointment’

Meanwhile, Kasthuri said in 2018, Pakatan Harapan welcomed the nonagenarian in the battle against BN, which she described as a “60-year-old hegemony which Mahathir manufactured”.

 Mahathir Mohamad

“Malaysians had hoped for a statesperson, a leader to steer this nation to greater heights, but it seems you have never repented and remained, above all, a national disappointment.

“So please Tun, you of all people, have no moral authority to label the prime minister a dictator,” she added.

Kasthuri, who served as the Batu Kawan MP in Penang for two terms before deciding not to contest in the last general election, said Malaysia needs progressive and visionary leaders.

“Your time of divide and rule, and the government knows all is over. Please don't be a wedge between patriotic Malaysians in nation-building,” she added.

Yesterday, Mahathir had denounced Anwar as an oppressive leader after his plan to hold a pro-Malay gathering failed to materialise.