Human Resources Minister M Kulasegaran has apologised for the 'pendatang' (immigrants) comment made during a speech in Nilai last week and has withdrawn the remark.

After a video excerpt of his speech at the Tamil-speaking event appeared online, Utusan Malaysia quoted him as saying that Malays were "pendatang" and that Hindus were the original people of Malaya.

However, Kulasegaran later responded by saying that his speech was intentionally taken out of context to stir racial tensions, and that he never made remarks about the Malay community.

In his statement today, he further clarified that words often take on different meanings in different languages.