Malaysia: Family moves court against Islamic burial

A Hindu family in Muslim-majority Malaysia has moved court to stop Islamic authorities from burying a relative as a Muslim claiming that he had converted, the latest inter-religious dispute to have cropped up in this multi-racial country.

B Elangesvaran, 34, committed suicide by hanging on Sunday. However, a hospital in the northern state of Penang refused to release the body saying that the local Islamic Religious Department had told them that the deceased had converted to Islam and hence had to be buried in the Islamic way.

Elangesvaran's family has filed a case in Penang high court seeking a declaration that he is a Hindu and that his body should be released to the family for cremation.

The family said they had received no proof that Elangesvaran had converted to Islam.

"I was only served with a police report alleging that my brother had embraced Islam at the Penang Islamic Religious Department... and a letter with some scribbling allegedly done by Elangesvaran that he had converted," Elangesvaran's brother Selvan was quoted as saying by local media.

After a number of similar cases led to outcry from ethnic Indians and Chinese, Premier Abdullah Badawi announced that non-Muslims who wanted to convert to Islam would be required to inform their family before converting.

Ethnic Indians comprise 7.8 per cent of Malaysia's population of 27 million people and a majority of them are Hindus.

Elangesvaran's case indicates that Abdullah's announcement had amounted to nothing, A Vaithilingam, president of the Malaysian Consultative Council of Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Sikhism and Taoism said.