Preakas alleged that on Saturday, Pertubuhan Kebajikan Integriti Persahabatan Nasional founder Joseph Prakash and several other people interrupted preparations for his Deepavali open house for Kota Kemuning, and accused him of cheating Deepavali traders.

“Prakash and several others disrupted the (preparations for the event), making baseless accusations that I do not support the Indian community. He even livestreamed (the incident) on TikTok,” he said in a statement.

He described the accusations as “entirely false”, and said his service record showed continuous support for numerous Indian community initiatives, organisations, and cultural programmes.

“The allegation that I cheated Deepavali traders is false. I have not received money from anyone. I’m filing a lawsuit against this individual,” he said.

He said despite Prakash’s behaviour, he agreed to meet him at his office yesterday in good faith, but the situation escalated when Prakash began shouting and allegedly made certain demands from him and his political secretary.

“I asked him to leave my office to cool down. Some of my staff came in to help de-escalate the situation out of concern for the safety of the service centre,” he said.

Instead, he alleged that Prakash shouted obscenities, made threats, and even challenged him to a fight, “which I immediately declined”.

Preakas said that after Prakash left the office, he started a TikTok Live session “to continue his verbal abuse and humiliate the hardworking staff” of the service centre.

He said his staff have since lodged police reports, and urged the authorities to conduct a full and fair investigation.

FMT is reaching out to Prakash and the police for their comments.