PUTRAJAYA, Aug 29 — Datuk Seri Najib Razak today admonished Senator P. Waythamoorthy, saying he has to toe the government line as he is a member of the government.

“As a member of the government, you must be toe the line, you must have one voice,” the prime minister was quoted by Malaysiakini as saying at a press conference here.

Waythamoorthy (picture), a deputy minister who is also a leader of Hindu rights NGO Hindraf, came under fire from his government colleagues recently after he raised questions over the police’s account of the killings of five suspected gangsters in Penang.

Among his harshest critics were Home Minister Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi and Defence Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein, who both told him to quit if he was unwilling to toe the government line.

The deputy minister however shrugged off the calls, saying that he will continue to stay in government in the interest of the Indian community.

Waythamoorthy was handpicked by Najib and appointed a deputy minister in the Prime Minister’s Department.

Hindraf, which Waythamoorthy had at one time led with his brother P. Uthayakumar, has had a tenuous relationship with the government over the years.

The NGO had organised one of the biggest rallies seen in the country in 2007 to protest against the marginalisation of Indians in Malaysia, and was later declared an illegal organisation by the government.

Both sides eventually reconciled in the months prior to Election 2013, with the blueprint signed and endorsed by Najib himself.