JUNE 30 — It is unfortunate that the Home Minister Datuk Seri Zahid Hamidi has taken a lackadaisical approach by uttering “that’s the price to pay for a ‘mulut celupar’” towards the incident of a severed cow head flung at the gate of the house of DAP Seri Delima state Assemblyman RSN Rayer.

For a Cabinet Minister in charge of the nation’s security and stability, Malaysians expect him to uphold the law, even if the intended target is from an opponent political party. Such apathetic and arrogant remarks will only encourage further acts of violence and Malaysia descending into a state of lawlessness.

MCA does not condone Rayer abusing the immunity granted by the Penang State Assembly when he flailed UMNO as “celaka.” However, MCA condemns the lobbing of the decapitated cow head at his abode, thereby threatening the lives of his family. By urging action against the culprit, Zahid will show that the federal government will not stoop to the level of DAP of spewing insults at political opponents. Instead, public confidence with BN will be restored as BN will be known to uphold the law and protection for all Malaysian citizens irrespective of political ideology and ethnicity.

Police must also protect the rights of minorities

Considering that a cow is a sacred animal to Hindus, and the incident befell on the eve of the start of Ramadan, Malaysians also expect the police to use the full force of the law to search for the perpetrator. We shudder a situation of racial tension being stoked, or the perception of bias by the Home Ministry and the police whereby law enforcers will not be bothered as the target of the attack is from the Opposition or does not share the same faith as Zahid.

As it is, the public is seething in disbelief against the Inspector General of Police wantonly snubbing the committal order by the Ipoh High Court and the recovery order by the Seremban High Court that the police locate and return Indira Gandhi’s daughter and S. Deepa’s son respectively to the mothers of whom custody was awarded.

By upholding the law i.e. pursuing the cow head [sic]or abiding with the civil court orders, Zahid will put a halt to the impression that the authorities and he as the Home Minister are ignoring or displacing the rights of minorities and approving actions of lawbreakers against the former.

*Datuk Ti Lian Ker is MCA Religious Harmony Bureau Chairman and MCA Central Committee member.

**This is the personal opinion of the writer and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malay Mail Online.