KUALA LUMOUR, 12 Nov: The Central Government has allegedly been lying to the people when they said that the demolition of the Sri Muneswarar Kaliyaman temple in Kuala Lumpur last Sunday was to beautify the temple.
The Member of Parliament for Padang Serai, N.Surendran, said that the over 100 year old temple has been once again ‘attacked’ by the Kuala Lumpur City Council (DBKL) on the orders from the Ministry of Federal Territories and Urban Wellbeing, where a large part of it was demolished yesterday.
He said that the move once again proves the Umno-BN government’s failure in fulfilling promises made during the Genera Election (GE) to not demolish the temple.
“90 percent of the temple has been torn down and can no longer be used by the Indian community, thus proving that the statement issued by Datuk Seri Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor, is a lie.
“The Prime Minister promised to not demolish the temple in a pledge he made, however failed to implement it. In fact, they gave this land to developers to be developed,” he said in a press conference at the Parliament lobby today.
reviously, Tengku Adnan claimed that demolition work by DBKL at the Sri Muneswarar Kaliyaman temple is part of the government’s plan to “beautify” the temple.
Calling it as simply a “place of worship” and not a kuil, he also claimed that there are illegal activities being carried out in the place based on inspection by his ministry.
Meanwhile, the Member of Parliament for Batu, Tian Chua, said that the government did not need to use force to solve this issue because the temple committee agreed to carry out renovations based on the criteria set.
“We hope that the government can be tolerant and wait for negotiations to resolve this issue,” said the PKR Vice-President.
The Member of Parliament for Bagan, Lim Guan Eng, representing DAP, described the situation now faced by the Indian community in Kuala Lumpur as the same as in Penang.
He said the governments guarantee to beautify the temple is doubtful because the Federal Government had demolished a Hindu kuil at the Penang Port and did not rebuilt it despite promising to do so.
Even though they promised to rebuild (the kuil), they have yet to implement it for over three years.
“I assume that the promises from ministers are dubious because they proved their failure when they did the same thing in Penang,” he said.