A police report has been lodged against Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) over its teaching module which made derogatory claims about the Hindus and Sikhs.
The Star Online’s Danial Albakri reports that the chairman of the Malaysian Indian Progressive Association (Mipas) had gone to the police over the matter.
The association’s secretary-general S. Barathidasan was quoted as saying that more police reports would be made in the near future.
“Mipas also wants to know since when were the UTM authorities experts in Hinduism?” he reportedly said in a statement.
“Mipas asks that the UTM authorities work together to conduct more thorough research beforehand and ensure the facts are correct and accurate with Hindu religious organisations, NGOs and academic experts before releasing any teaching modules,” he was quoted further.
Yesterday, Deputy Education Minister P. Kamalanathan posted images of the teaching module — which claimed that Islam had taught Hindus ‘manners in life’ and ‘the importance of personal hygiene and health’ — on Facebook.
The slides also claimed that ‘Hindus preferred to be in a dirty state as they see it as a way to achieve “Nirvana.”’
Kamalanathan said on Facebook that he had spoken to the university’s vice-chancellor, who admitted the mistakes.
“He has also stated that the necessary changes to the module concerned will be corrected expeditiously.”
“I also asked him to please ensure that such errors are not repeated as they can cause confusion and hurt in some segments of students beside not being factual. He has totally agreed to my suggestion,” Kamalanathan said in the post.
