PAS has filed a police report on the cremation of the remains of lawyer RR Mahendran, whom the party claimed had become a Muslim.

The issue was first raised by PAS Youth chief Salahuddin Ayub in the Dewan Rakyat on Tuesday.

He had tabled an emergency motion to discuss how the 40-year-old lawyer, who died of a heart attack on Sept 5, was cremated according to Hindu rites.

Mahendran, who was based in Johor, had reportedly converted after marrying his second wife who is a Muslim and changed his name to Rafie Syzwan Abdullah.

Meanwhile, the police report was lodged by Johor PAS commissioner Dr Mahfodz Muhammad at the Sentral police station in Johor Bahru yesterday.

Widow threatened?

Contacted today, Salahuddin said a memorandum was also sent to the Johor Islamic Department (JAIJ) last week.

"PAS wants the authorities to investigate how could his remains be claimed and cremated when he is widely known to be a Muslim. We want to know if someone made a mistake or something went wrong," he added.

"We want action to be taken against those who were negligent enough to allow this bad thing to happen. PAS does not want to see the same mistake recur because this is a sensitive issue," he added.

According to Salahuddin, Mahendran had converted to Islam about five years ago.

"We were informed that he had openly declared embracing Islam and married a new convert from Sarawak. Based on the statements of his close friends, he had led the life of a Muslim with his family and even his Hindu family members knew this," he said.

Salahuddin stressed that PAS was not raising this matter to create fear or tensions between the different religions but merely to get to the bottom of the confusion.

"We suspect that there have been threats against his widow leading to his remains being taken and cremated according to Hindu rituals," he said