A Malaysian Sikh family is demanding to be given the remains of their relative who Islamic authorities say had converted to Islam, in the latest "body snatching" case to hit the country.
The family's lawyer said that religious authorities insisted Mohan Singh, a 41-year-old art director who died of a heart attack last Monday, had died a Muslim -- a claim the family disputes.
His body has been kept at the mortuary of a government hospital in central Selangor state which has refused to release the remains to the family, lawyer Rajesh Kumar told AFP.
"When he died, he was a practising Sikh, he never told anybody and nobody knew that he had converted to Islam, including family and close friends. His identification card to date stated that he is still a non-Muslim," Kumar said.
"The family is very upset. All they want is to claim the body and cremate him according to the Sikh rites," he added.
The lawyer said that the Islamic authorities claimed Mohan, who had directed some local films, had converted to Islam in 1992 and was seeking confirmation of his conversion from an Islamic sharia court.
"Our contention is that at the time of his death, he was still practising Sikhism and even when his mother died three years ago, he performed the last rites for the mother according to the Sikh faith," said Kumar.
"He wouldn't be able to do so if he is a Muslim," he said.
Conversion rows, including "body-snatching" cases when Islamic authorities have battled with relatives over the remains of people whose religion is disputed, are common in Muslim-majority Malaysia.
The tussles have raised allegations that the country of 27 million people is being "Islamised" and that the rights of the ethnic Chinese and Indian minorities are being eroded.
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