KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 17 — A DAP lawmaker asked Inspector-General of Police (IGP) Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar today to reveal how much it would cost Malaysia to block the remains of Chin Peng from being smuggled back into the country.

Segambut MP Lim Lip Eng also questioned the duration of the ban on Chin Peng’s ashes and if it was a blanket one, and demanded the IGP explain what measures would be taken to ensure that ashes entering Malaysia are not of the former Communist leader.

“I am concerned with the time and resources spent on law enforcement to closely monitor all of our nation’s entry checkpoints in order to prevent his remains to enter the country,” Lim said in a statement today.

“The IGP needs to reveal details of the ban on Chin Peng’s remains, which may be confusing to foreign visitors, for the sake of transparency and accountability in line with the Government Transformation Programme instituted by our prime minister,” he added.

The last wish of Chin Peng, whose real name was Ong Boon Hua, was to be buried in his hometown of Sitiawan in Perak.

But Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak said yesterday that Putrajaya would not allow the former Malayan Communist Party (CPM) secretary-general to be buried in Malaysia because of the “black history he had created”.

Chin Peng, 88, died in Bangkok, Thailand, yesterday in exile, reportedly of old age.

DAP chairman Karpal Singh said earlier today that Putrajaya’s refusal to allow the communist guerrilla to be buried in Malaysia put a black mark on the country’s honour.

The lawyer pointed out that the Hat Yai peace treaty in 1989 — between CPM, and the Malaysian and Thai governments — allowed CPM members who laid down their arms to return to their homeland if they wanted to.

Chin Peng had lost his lawsuit, which was filed in 2009, to be allowed back into Malaysia when the Federal Court ruled a year later that he needed birth and citizen certificates to re-enter.

US daily The Washington Post reported today that both documents had been seized by the British in the late 1940s.