Stop reporting on the controversy surrounding the Muslim burial of Mount Everest hero M Moorthy - that’s what the Senators Club has asked the media to do today.

Club’s secretary-general senator Syed Ali Alhabshee said the case should be closed after the Kuala Lumpur High Court on Wednesday rejected the application of his wife, S Kaliammal, to bury Moorthy’s body according to Hindu customs.

Bernama reported Syed Ali as saying that the issue was “too sensitive to be touched on continuously” by the media as it involved the issues of race and religion, and has therefore urged the media to stop playing up the controversy further.

The senator added as Malaysia is a multi-racial and multi-religious country, every member of the public had the responsibility to preserve racial harmony for the sake of peace, prosperity and public safety.

Right to review

Syed Ali, who is leader of the organisation representing the country’s senators, was commenting on a front-page report in New Straits Times today which had Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Mohd Nazri Abdul Aziz arguing that the civil courts should have the right to review decisions made by the syariah courts. 

Last Thursday, the Syariah Court ruled that Moorthy was a Muslim on an application by the Federal Territory Islamic Religious Council despite his family’s insistence that the former army commander had died a practicing Hindu.

Moorthy, who died last Tuesday at the age of 36 from serious head injuries, was one of the 10 individuals in the Malaysia Everest team - two of whom reached the peak of the world’s tallest mountain on May 23, 1997, the first Malaysians to achieve the feat.