COMMENT Rather than using the Christian community as his convenient bayonet practice when he accused them of using financial and material inducement to win over converts (as reported in Free Malaysia Today on Jan 18), PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang’s call that this “is a transgression which is a danger that must be fought” is alarming.

Is he suggesting a call to arms and/or waging a holy war against Christians, considering this is the battle cry of IS in their aim to topple the Vatican and install its version of a caliphate in its place.

Is the rise of radicalised Malaysians over the last decade - with the aim of causing mayhem within our own country or in Southeast Asia - not far more dangerous than his own imagined and manufactured “enemy” of the Christians?

Hadi should focus on discouraging Malaysians - for instance, impressionable youths and students - from linking up with terrorist activities. But more crucially, as PAS president, he must put in all efforts to sieve and weed out IS and militant-inclined sympathisers from within PAS.

Was it not former Kedah PAS Youth member Mohd Lotfi Ariffin who succumbed to injuries after joining IS’ campaign of torture and atrocities in the most imaginative methods in Syria?

And even more alarming, was it not the PAS Dewan Ulama which had observed a minute’s silence in their 2015 muktamar after declaring Mohd Lotfi a “martyr” despite his terrorist activities?

Was it not PAS Youth chief Nik Abduh - the son of PAS’ late spiritual adviser Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat - who likewise had declared Lotfi a “martyr”, and extenuated and justifying Lotfi’s militancy by writing in his Facebook post that “if someone is not responsible for his own end, then he will not be responsible for someone else's world?”

Was it not PAS vice-president Nik Amar Abdullah’s brother, Nik Adli, who - for his involvement with the Kumpulan Militan Malaysia (KMM) - was detained under the Internal Security Act (ISA) in August 2001 after undergoing militant training in Afghanistan?

Bukit Aman’s Counter Terrorism Division was yesterday reported as saying that since February 2013, up to 150 individuals - including 25 women and 21 foreigners - have been arrested in Malaysia for militant activities.

Fifty-four of these 150 have been prosecuted for various offences under the Penal Code, Firearms Act, Prevention of Crime Act and Immigration Act.

Bukit Aman further informed that 14 Malaysians had been killed after joining IS in Syria - of whom six were suicide bombers and eight were killed in clashes.

Hence, Hadi should heed the words of his deposed deputy (and now Parti Amanah Negara president) Mohamad Sabu that IS elements have infiltrated PAS, instead of piquing at Christians.

CHAI KIM SEN is MCA publicity bureau chairperson and MCA deputy national organising secretary.