Lay ash issue to rest, Waytha urges all parties
KUALA LUMPUR: All parties have been advised to refrain from escalating the issue of a Barisan Nasional lawmaker linking the holy ash worn by DAP Jelutong MP R. S. N. Rayer on his forehead to the ashes of former Communist Party of Malaya leader Chin Peng.
Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department P. Waytha Moorthy said while Datuk Seri Tajuddin Abdul Rahman’s action was insulting and inappropriate, he had already retracted his statement.
Waytha Moorthy also noted that Tajuddin has been suspended from Parliament so all quarters should put the matter to rest.
“To link the ash with a person who is no longer alive, I think it is a deliberate insult.
“But he has retracted his statement right?” the minister said to reporters when asked to comment on the issue at Parliament lobby yesterday.
On Tuesday, Tajuddin asked in the Dewan Rakyat if the holy ash worn by Rayer belonged to former Communist Party of Malaya leader Chin Peng, whose ashes were brought back into the country in September, triggering a ruckus in the Lower House.
Meanwhile, Deputy Defence Minister Liew Chin Tong’s office has lodged a police report against fugitive blogger Raja Petra Kamaruddin yesterday over an allegedly defamatory article published in his news blog last week.
The article claimed that Liew had masterminded the idea of smuggling the ashes of Chin Peng to “trigger Malay outrage” and “reunite the Chinese behind the DAP so that the disaster of the Tanjung Piai by-election will never be repeated or duplicated in GE15”.
Sentul police chief ACP S. Shanmugamoorthy said yesterday that the police report was lodged by Liew’s media officer at 10.45am.
“The article alleged that the deputy minister had mooted the idea to bring in Chin Peng’s ashes and this was planned months ahead of the Tanjung Piai by-election,” he said.