Have a heart, Karpal tells Putrajaya on Chin Peng
V. Anbalagan, TMI
DAP national chairman Karpal Singh (pic) said Putrajaya should allow the ashes of Chin Peng to be buried in his hometown in Sitiawan, Perak.
“The government must be magnanimous after his death. They did not allow him to return during his lifetime,” he said in response to Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s statement that Putrajaya would not entertain any application by Chin Peng’s family members to bring back his body to Malaysia for burial.
Chin Peng, who would have been 90 next month, died in a Bangkok hospital yesterday morning.
Karpal said once a person was dead his past was irrelevant.
He said it was a well-known fact that Chin Peng was born in Sitiawan although he had lost his birth certificate while escaping from the British during a raid.
“He was definitely born in Sitiawan and there is no doubt about that. This could have been proved from available records and witnesses like family friends,” he told reporters after attending the sodomy appeal of Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim in Putrajaya.
Karpal said politicians, historians and individuals judged Chin Peng differently but it could not be denied that the communist leader had expedited Malaya’s attainment of independence.
“He fought the Japanese with the British, and later the British,” he said.
