KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 6 (AFP) - Plans by a local Malaysian government to relocate a 150-year-old Hindu temple to a majority Muslim area have been shelved after continued protests, a lawmaker said Sunday.
The decision came after a consultation between Selangor state officials and local people descended into chaos on Saturday, with protesters threatening violence, local media reported.
Charles Santiago, an MP with the opposition Democratic Action Party, told AFP, "Selangor state is looking for a new site due to the protest by the Muslims."
Demonstrators claimed the Hindu temple would create traffic jams and noise in their Muslim-majority neighbourhood, he said.
The consultation session was held after a group of Muslim protesters last week paraded the severed head of a cow at the site of the proposed temple, in Shah Alam west of Kuala Lumpur.
Selangor Chief Minister Abdul Khalid Ibrahim told reporters the state government would search for another site.
"We have already asked Selangor state development corporation... to identify another location," he was quoted as saying by the Sunday Star newspaper.
Around 60 percent of Malaysia's 27 million people are Muslim Malays, but the country is also home to large Chinese and Indian minorities, variously practising Buddhism, Christianity and Hinduism, among others.
Issues related to religion, language and race are sensitive matters in multi-racial Malaysia, which witnessed deadly riots in 1969. (AFP)
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