FEDERAL Territories Minister Hannah Yeoh has slammed opposition-slant political activist Badrul Hisham Shaharin a.k.a. Chegubard and UMNO Batu Division head Gulam Muszaffar Gulam Mustakim for politicising the issue of Islamic burial land in Semenyih, Selangor.
The National DAP secretary-general contended in s report by Berita Harian that the issue of burial grounds should not be politicised because it is both a necessity and duty of the government towards the rakyat.
“In Kuala Lumpur, we don’t have enough Islamic burial grounds to accommodate future capacity,” Yeoh who is also the Segambut MP told the media at the Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL) Crematorium Complex in Cheras yesterday (July 8).
Due to this issue, plans are afoot by the Federal Territories Department (JWP) and the Cabinet to acquire additional land in Semenyih to be used as a burial ground.
This Islamic cemetery is related to the process of building a road that will solve the very serious traffic problem in Semenyih now.”
There are various reforms and government programmes that we’re implementing to help the people, including in Kuala Lumpur.
Accordingly, Yeoh said she would file a police report against Chegubard and Gulam through her press secretary Ahmad Fazli Mohd Yadi on their respective allegation of malpractices.
Both Chegubard and Ghulam had both opposed the Islamic burial ground project on their respective social media platforms earlier.
Chegubard alleged that a company managing wealthy non-Muslim burials obtained joint rights with JWP for the Federal Territory cemetery site management agreement.
Meanwhile, Gulam alleged that the cemetery project would be privatised to an external company which he claimed would result in increased burial costs.
Despite the threat of police reports, against Chegubard and Gulam, it has not deterred others from raising the issue.
One such individual is socio-politics observer and activist, Zam Yahaya who proclaimed that “under Yeoh’s stewardship, even burial land for Muslims is privatised!”
In a post on Facebook Reels which also carries a video of Gulam issuing his statement, Zam claimed that this would lead to “Muslim graves having a ‘caste’ system like the Chinese Nirvana cemetery in Nilai”.
“This would be unsurprising given the private entity involved is also the towkay of the Nirvana cemetery,” argued the SEDAR Malaysia vice-president.
Zam’s FB Reel post has generated 1.7K likes, 540 comments and 1K shares at the time of writing, denoting that the public has genuine concerns surrounding this project dealing with the hyper-sensitive issue of the afterlife.
The sense of dismay at this latest development was apparent with many netizens querying the motives behind this controversial relocation. One confused commenter simply saw this as the DAP meddling in Islamic affairs.
The alarmist flame-fanning was apparent with one commenter expressing dismay that Muslim cemeteries were to become a business opportunity just like Chinese burials.
Another even had the audacity to warn that Muslim corpses would be cremated in the future “when they (meaning the DAP) were fully in power”.
True enough, with the Johor state polls being round the corner (July 11), this issue was used as further evidence of the erosion of Malay rights under Pakatan Harapan’s (PH) stewardship.
Malays who voted for such a government was labelled “stupid” by this obviously anti-PH commenter.
However, one commenter asked why such queries weren’t being directed to UMNO which is part of the unity government.
“What was UMNO doing in cabinet?” asked this perplexed netizen who wondered why the Kuala Lumpur Muslim cemetery was being moved to Semenyih. The retort was that Selangor was under PH rule thus allowing further control of the matter.
Public necessity or business opportunity? This issue looks like it will be on the lips of citizens for the foreseeable future.
Nothing quite scares people like horror stories involving death, especially when 3R (race, religion and royalty) elements are added to the script. – July 9, 2026
