Don’t pay lip service, Hindu Sangam tells Khalid on pledge to help ‘Muslim’ woman
V. Anbalagan, The Malaysian Insider
The Malaysia Hindu Sangam (MHS) has told Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim not to pay “lip service” in the issue of a factory worker whose wedding last Sunday was disrupted by officials from the Selangor Islamic Department (Jais).
“I welcome the (Selangor) MB’s assurance but it must not be mere lip service like what is happenig in the Bible case,” said MHS president Datuk R.S. Mohan Shan (pic), referring to Jais’s seizure of Bibles from the Bible Society of Malaysia last January.
Mohan called on Khalid to give personal attention to ensure Zarinah Abdul Majid, 32, will be allowed to change the status of her religion on her identity card.
Mohan said Zarinah had suffered emotionally and it was time Jais helped her to carry on with her life.
After chairing a state executive council meeting today, Khalid said Jais would assist Zarinah in her bid to change her religious status.
Zarinah, whose Muslim name was registered by her estranged father, was raised as a Hindu. She told The Malaysian Insider that her trips to the Shariah Court and the National Registration Department to remove the word “Islam” from her identity card had been in vain.
On Sunday, she tied the knot with her boyfriend of 7 years at a Hindu temple in Petaling Jaya, but the wedding ceremony was disrupted when several Jais officers arrived to check on her religious status.
Zarinah said she had invited 400 guests and spent more than RM30,000 on the wedding reception.
The incident has been condemned by Hindu and rights groups, as well as former Perlis mufti Datuk Dr Mohd Asri Zainul Abidin.
Mohan said Jais could submit a report to the Shariah Court to facilitate Zarinah obtaining her certificate of renunciation from Islam.
