KUALA LUMPUR, June 14 — MCA’s religious harmony bureau condemned today Universiti Teknologi Malaysia’s (UTM) education slides for demeaning minority religions in the country.

Its chairman Datuk Seri Ti Lian Ker added that the actions of some “loose cannons” among the public university’s academic staff who sought to push respect and understanding for Islamic beliefs and practices had backfired and instead, tarnished the reputation of Malaysian Muslims.

“The recent UTM slides demeaning Hindus and Sikhs is not only ‘mean’ but at the same time, gives Muslims a bad name,” he said in a statement on the heels of public uproar over the university’s leaked slides from its Islamic and Asian Civilisation Studies (TITAS) module that had misrepresented facts about Hinduism and Sikhism.

But Ti also claimed there is a “recent trend of one-upmanship over another” that was not limited to Muslims in the country, adding that such a practice “is a sign of inadequacy or immaturity”.

He said such people should be reprimanded for staining their own religions in multireligious Malaysia.

In a separate statement, Ti’s deputy Datuk Ng Chok Sin said MCA has been calling for a review on race-bent messages in the country’s history textbooks that were not necessarily teaching historical facts.

“Unfortunately, biased presentation of history and facts, and in this case, the history and features of religion continue to reveal its distorted view from secondary school to university level.

“Universities are meant to impart intellectual discourse,” Ng said.

He added that the MCA bureau supported filing police reports over the UTM slides to facilitate an investigation.

He also demanded the person who prepared the factually inaccurate slides be charged with sedition.

“These are not simple mistakes, but rather, deliberate move to render one religion superior over others.

“Only the authors and approving editors know if they were trying to brainwash all Malaysian students whilst simultaneously trying to belittle Hindus and Sikhs as culturally inferior,” Ng said.

Slides from UTM’s TITAS module caused uproar after they were posted online, outraging the local Hindu community with claims that they considered the dirt on the body as part of their religious practice to achieve nirvana.

Among others, the slides also claimed that Islam had introduced civility to the lives of the Hindu community.

The TITAS module was made mandatory to all tertiary students regardless of religion in 2013.

Critics of the module had then alleged that it was a front to push an Islamic supremacy agenda in the country.

The university’s vice-chancellor Professor Datuk Dr Wahid Omar today apologised for the slides, which he said was not ministry approved.

He also said the university will be conducting a thorough investigation into the incident following the uproar.