Zahid denies knowing ‘crazy bomoh’

KUALA LUMPUR, March 17 — Home Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi today denied being friends with the “raja bomoh” (witchdoctor king) who drew public uproar last week after he performed a ritual to locate MH370.

“I don’t know him. But what I do know is the one that was holding up the coconuts is from Pokok Sena,” Zahid said in his reply to Datuk Mahfuz Omar (PAS-Pokok Sena) during Question Time in the Dewan Rakyat here.

The witchdoctor, Ibrahim Mat Zin, claimed to be a close friend of Zahid’s and that he has VVIPs in his “long list of clienteles” in a bid to counter the widespread ridicule he received after performing the ritual at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Sepang last week.

“Pokok Sena is probably as crazy as the bomoh,” Zahid went on to say following Mahfuz’s earlier claims that the minister is friends with Ibrahim.

Ibrahim, who professes to be “raja bomoh” or the king of the witch doctors, performed rituals using coconuts and bamboo sticks meant to “locate” the missing Beijing-bound Boeing 777 jet at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) in the presence of local and international media on Monday.

The event drew immediate ridicule from observers as well as Internet users who took to social media sites like Twitter and Facebook to deride the witch doctors, with some posting spoof pictures of them sitting on a supposed flying carpet that have gone viral, as well as the government for allowing the three to conduct the rituals there.

Ibrahim, a known ardent supporter of the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition, claimed the jet carrying 239 people including 12 crew members had travelled into the “alam bunian”, a Malay description for a spiritual realm inhabited by supernatural beings.

Putrajaya denied it had invited the witchdoctor to perform the ritual.

The Selangor Islamic Religious Department (Jais) has since released a directive stating that its officers stationed at the KLIA will arrest anyone seen to be performing rituals which went against Islamic teachings.

The search continues for the missing Malaysia Airlines plane almost ten days after it dropped out from the radar in the pre-dawn hours on Saturday.

The plane, carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew, went missing at around 1.40am while en route to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur, It was scheduled to land in Beijing at 6.30am.