KUALA LUMPUR, March 17 (Xinhua) -- Around 100 Nepali workers were briefly detained by police on Sunday in the southern town of Muar for planning to stage an protest against delayed implementation of new minimum wage standard, local media reported.
Muar police chief Mohammed Nasir Ramli said policemen were deployed after receiving information that the workers had planned to gather illegally at several places in town in protest against their employers.
"We had to stop them before they gathered as they could have started a riot," he was quoted as saying by the Star newspaper.
All the detained were released later on the day.
Foreign workers from Nepal and several other countries have staged strikes recently in Muar and other towns for the delayed implementation of new minimum wage of 900 ringgit (288 U.S. dollars) a month this year. It is reported that the new standard only applied to local employees in their factories.
The new standard introduced by the government has met with strong opposition from small businesses, who complain that the policy has greatly increased their cost.
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