A Malaysian minister on Friday said justice was not served in the case of an ethnic Indian who was accorded an Islamic burial against the wishes of his Hindu widow.
The body of 36-year-old Indian commando M Moorthy was on Wednesday buried according to Islamic rites after the Malaysia High Court rejected his wife Kaliammal Sinnasamy's claim over the body.
The court was told Moorthy had converted to Islam in 2004 and changed his name to Mohammed Abdullah and that a Shariat court had already passed its judgment in the case.
Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Nazri Aziz said if such cases went before the Shariat court, it might create the perception that the court was deciding in favour of Islam.
'The question in Moorthy's case was whether he was indeed a Muslim in the first place. If we let the Muslim court decide this, justice might not be served because it will decide in favour of Islam,' he was quoted as saying by the New Strait Times on Friday.
Sinnasamy had argued that her husband was a practicing Hindu and had not informed her about the conversion.
Nazri said whenever there were conflicting views about a person's faith 'we need to find a better way to settle the matter'.
The ruling had rattled Malaysia's minority communities who said they feel threatened. The minority leaders said they feel uneasy, uncomfortable and threatened in this multi-racial country after the incident.
