Hindraf questions Selangor's state government's decision to convert a 3.38 hectre plot of Hindu burial land to a Muslim cemetery. 

K Pragalath, FMT

Hindraf wants the Selangor state government to explain its decision to convert a 3.38 hectre Hindu burial land in Teluk Piai, Kuala Selangor, to a Muslim cemetery.

“Why grab the land when Selangor is 7,955 square kilometres?” asked Hindraf’s P Uthayakumar in a letter addressed to Selangor Menteri Besar, Khalid Ibrahim.

Uthayakumar, who is also Human Rights Party’s pro-tem secretary general, was responding to a news report in Malay daily, Sinar Harian today on the matter.

In the report, Malaysian Indian Welfare and Cemetery Management Association president M Raman had asked the state government for an alternative plot of land for a Hindu cemetery.

Raman said the state exco, at a meeting in July last year, despite acknowledging that the plot of land in Teluk Piai was a Hindu cemetery decided to regazette it as a Muslim cemetary.

Raman said this was revealed in the 2010 Selangor Cemetery Inventory Report.

“Even a letter from the rural and urban planning department dated Aug 28 this year states that the land, in Lot 13, Api-Api, Kampung Teluk Piai, is a Hindu burial land,” said Raman.

Uthayakumar said: “Reconvert, re-gazette, issue permanent land titles and restore this historical Hindu cemetery in the memory of the rubber tappers who contributed extensively to Malaya’s economy.”

He also requested for a copy of the 2010 Selangor Cemetery Inventory Report under the Selangor Freedom of Information Enactment 2010 to ascertain the number of Hindu cemeteries in the state and how many of them have been gazetted.

Uthayakumar also raised concerns over the status of the Hindu cemeteries in Barisan Nasional administered states.

He gave three examples: the Bukit Jalil Hindu cemetery that was re-gazetted as Muslim burial ground, a cemetary in Kuala Sawah, Negeri Sembilan that was wiped out and a burial ground in Rantau, Seremban that was desecreated.