MyKad errors bedevil Sagaran (The Star 24.01.2006)

IPOH: Lorry driver K. Sagaran has been having sleepless nights and fights with his wife – all because of his MyKad. 

The 44-year-old Batu Gajah-born Hindu said when he applied for his MyKad three years ago, the National Registration Department (NRD) office in Batu Gajah told him that their records showed that he was a Muslim.

“It created problems for me as my wife accused me of taking another woman,” he said yesterday at a press conference organised by Perak MCA Public Services and Complaints Bureau deputy head Datuk Lee Kon Yin.
 
According to him, he had to give a sworn statement at the Religious Department in Batu Gajah that he was a Hindu.

He said the recent case of the late Mount Everest climber Sjn M. Moorthy had not helped the situation.

“I could suddenly die in an accident. My wife is worried about the status of my religion.” 

Sagaran also found another problem with his card during the 2004 general election.

“I was told that my card showed I was born in Kedah.” 

Sagaran’s identity card number has a “02” code, indicating that he is Kedah-born, instead of “08” for those born in Perak.

According to him, the NRD staff in Batu Gajah had told him to apply for a new MyKad.

Lee said he would write to the Home Affairs Ministry to find out the status of Sagaran’s religion and to help change the code. 

My comment:

This issue is not new. There have been a lot of discrepancies in NRD's records. I remember when I applied for a new IC (not yet the myKad) at NRD Petaling Jaya, there were quite a number of cases where Chinese men were stated as female in their IC and they had to take an oath stating that they never had any sex-transfer operation etc. And not to mention mistakes such as Sagaran's. I'm not sure whether this issue is resulted from system migration (NRD upgraded their system a few years back to accomodate photo-taking "online" and myKad integration), but I believe NRD is responsible to check all their records the soonest possible. Though it's tedious but it's is very essential and neccessary to do in order to eliminate such issues. Though to some people, it's trivial, but I believe this issue is very serious and it is vital.

Imagine, if one day Sagaran dies (not that I wish him to), his family has to go through the hassle just to get him declared as non-Muslim. And the saddest thing, could be that his family couldn't bury him as a Hindu in the end.

And to the public, when you apply your MyKad or MyKid, make sure that all details are correct before leaving the NRD office. Don't wait until the last minute to raise any relevant matter. Remember, when you act fast, you solve fast, too.