PAS is taking a step in the wrong direction by urging the federal government to emulate several of its laws in Kelantan and Terengganu to stop moral decadence, DAP deputy chairperson Karpal Singh said today.

Karpal said PAS' president Fadzil Noor's reasoning that separate payment counters for men and women in supermarkets is a measure to protect the women from becoming victims of sexual abuse is "difficult to comprehend".

"PAS leaders should be progressive and pragmatic in their thinking. It is the reality of the position in the present day and time which should concern them," said Karpal.

He also said that measures of such nature by PAS had put the other partners in the opposition coalition, namely Keadilan, PRM and DAP, in a spot.

"Measures which are meaningless and devoid of such logic should not emanate from PAS, which aspires, through the opposition front, to dislodge the Barisan Nasional in the coming general election," Karpal said.

Fadzil told the media yesterday that various laws which had been introduced in the two east-coast states had worked well and could be used to stop rapes and murders.

His call came in the wake of a number of recent rape and murder cases highlighted after a Form Four student, Hurul Hanis Kamil, was brutally raped, sodomised and strangled by the strap of her school bag in Jasin, Melaka, earlier this month.

Psychological instibility

Meanwhile, a PAS state assembly representative today slammed Selangor Mentri Besar Mohamad Khir Toyo for his accusation that the Malay community was being increasingly affected by psychological instability because of the opposition's misuse of mosques to spread hate sentiments.

Kajang representative Shafie Abu Bakar said in a statement to malaysiakini that Khir's statement is baseless and merely an act to defame PAS.

"I would like to ask him whether he can prove that those who committed the 43 cases of rape in Kuala Lumpur from January to June this year were the very same persons who had gone to the mosques and were misguided by the speeches purportedly delivered by PAS members," Shafie said.

He also cautioned Khir in making such accusations as rape and murder are serious offences.