Suspect in controversial Malay attire praying at tokong will be released on bail

A video that went viral showing a man in Malay dress and wearing a cap doing some rituals (praying rituals) at a small Chinese tokong has caught the attention of the Malaysian police.

The police arrested the man, a fisherman, who will be released today, but police says the case does not end there.

Malaysian social media went abuzz with the video and screenshots of the man allegedly praying at the tokong, with locals urging Islamic authorities to catch the fellow.

The portal Ismaweb says people with evil intent are behind the posting of the video on social media.

The 15 seconds video shows the man kneeling in front of the tokong, holding incense sticks while an individual recorded the scene.

A member of a Mosque committee in Tanjung Piandang in Perak made a police report on June 7. The police chief of the area Superintendent Omar Bakhtiar Yaacob told the local media a crime investigation unit from Bukit Aman, the police headquarters in Kuala Lumpur is investigating the matter, Utusan reported.

Muslims do not to pray to non-Islamic deities and do prayers at non-Islamic symbols, such as a tokong where the man is praying in the video.

However, reports suggest the man in the video is a non-Muslim of Chinese origin who is practising the belief of wishing Selamat Hari Raya to an ancient deity known as Datuk Gong.

The custom is to wear Malay dress, including the cap, to make the wish and to offer halal food to the deity because according to popular belief the deity is a Malay, Muslim.

The ritual originates from a mixture of Malay and Chinese practices. Datuk Gong is a diet supposedly giving protection for health, peace and bounties and is a practice by some Chinese sects in Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Brunei and South Thailand, says the Sos Cili website.

There were mixed online comments some criticising the practice while others say people should not interfere in other’s beliefs.

There is also a tokong for Datuk Karpal Singh, the fiery Democratic Action Party leader killed when the car he was travelling in collided with a five-tonne lorry.