UNIVERSITY students must remain steadfast and continue their fight against corruption, said Education Minister Maszlee Malik in giving his support for the six Universiti Malaya students who faced a rowdy group of Najib Razak supporters.

Maszlee said that thugs, extremists, and terrorists have no place in universities, and expressed his disappointment with the Najib supporters who manhandled the student protesters earlier today.

“To the students, jangan malu (do not feel ashamed). There are some responsibilities that we need to shoulder for society.

“We must move forward. We have to fight the corrupt and uphold truth,” he said in a statement.

Maszlee was referring to the altercation between the group of UM students and Najib loyalists opposite a restaurant near the main campus.

The students were protesting against Najib, near where the former prime minister was holding a meet-and-greet session outside UM.

The six of them held a silent protest with placards condemning Najib when they were confronted by a group led by Umno Supreme Council member Lokman Noor Adam. One of the six was assaulted.

Maszlee urged the authorities to take action if there were elements of criminality. He did not mention Najib by name.

Lokman meanwhile brushed aside the incident as a “small matter”.

“If the police want to arrest me, they should also arrest the student. They were the ones provoking. I am defending my boss,” said Lokman.

The student who was manhandled was UM Association of New Youth (Umany) president Wong Yan Ke, whom Lokman had labelled as “the DAP supporter”.

Najib meanwhile said Umno did not know who assaulted Wong.

“The attacker is not a party member nor was he involved in the ceramah. He, according to what I was told, was a passer-by who decided to join in when the fracas happened,” he was reported as saying.

However, former Umno Youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin disagreed with the violent behaviour done in the name of the party. He tweeted to say that “Umno must condemn this thuggish behaviour”.

In another development, the owners of Restoran Amjal, the venue for Najib’s programme, have been reported as saying that they were not told that Najib would be showing up for the event.

“We asked the organiser several times – ‘Will Najib be there?’ They said, ‘no’. But suddenly, Najib showed up this afternoon,” the owner’s daughter was quoted as saying in Malaysiakini.

The restaurant is well known as a venue for events organised by anti-Barisan Nasional activists and politicians. – March 23, 2019.