In a Facebook post, Akmal said that legal action must be taken to serve as a lesson to others.

“People who insult another race must face legal action, and not (get away) by just offering an apology.

“If not, this culture of saying or doing something offensive and then simply apologising will continue, making it even easier for such individuals to evade accountability,” the Merlimau assemblyman said.

Last night, national unity minister Aaron Ago Dagang said the hawker had apologised to all Malaysians, particularly the Indian community, for his actions.

Aaron said the man who sold corn also pledged not to commit such actions in the future.

He said that the apology was made at a restaurant in Sepang in the presence of representatives from the Indian community, influencers, local residents, officials from the national unity and integration department, and police.

Previously, an Indian youth NGO urged local authorities to conduct a thorough investigation on the hawker’s sign in Sepang, Selangor.

The Malaysian Tamil Bell Youth Club (MKBBT) had strongly condemned the sign, written in Malay, which contained a racist slur against Indians, as seen in a video shared on social media.

Meanwhile, DAP national chairman Lim Guan Eng has proposed the enactment of an anti-racial discrimination law to check and punish deliberate acts of racism.

“This law is necessary to prevent extremist politicians or irresponsible individuals from engaging in hate speech, provocative acts, or spreading lies to divide Malaysians by fostering hatred or unfair treatment toward a particular community,” the Bagan MP said.

Lim, a former finance minister, said the incident involving the hawker indicated that unhealthy and irrational racist sentiment has influenced certain segments of society.

“Such racist sentiments, expressed so publicly and without any sense of shame by an individual, can no longer be dismissed as just the mindless frothings of extremist politicians,” he said.