Cow killed in Malaysian temple row

Muslim fanatics in Malaysia on Friday severed a cow’s head and warned of “bloodshed” unless a provincial government halted construction of a relocated Hindu temple that the protesters said “disturbed” their own praying.

The group of about 50 protesters left the cow’s head outside the entrance of the Selangor State Secretariat as a warning to local leaders, eyewitnesses told DNA.

The group gathered after Friday prayers at the Shah Alam state mosque in Selangor, near Kuala Lumpur, and marched to the secretariat. Ibrahim Haji Sabri, deputy chairman of the local resident’s committee that is opposed to the Maha Mariamman temple, warned of “bloodshed and racial tension” if local leaders did not halt the temple construction.

Sabri demanded that the state government relocate the temple to a neighbouring district as “as originally scheduled”. In particular, he branded Selangor minister Menteri Besar Tan Sri Abdul Khalid Ibrahim a “traitor to the Malay race and to Islam”. Ibrahim had visited the temple site on Thursday, one of the eyewitnesses told DNA.

The controversy began with the proposed relocation of a 150-year-old Mariamman temple in a plantation area in Section 19 neighbourhood; since that area is being redeveloped as a residential area, authorities proposed that it be relocated to Section 22, but since it was an industrial area, it was later assigned to Section 23.

The protest could whip up racial and religious tension, and PM Najib Razak has ordered the police to take action against the protesters. Malaysian Indian Congress president S Samy Vellu, who represents Indian interests in the ruling coalition at the centre, condemned the beheading of the cow.