Fire breaks out at Mais’s office

A small fire broke out at the Selangor Islamic Religious Coun‎cil (Mais) office in the Sultan Idris Shah building, Shah Alam, today, just as a group of non-governmental organisations (NGO) arrived there to express their support for the body's stance over the Bible issue.

The fire started on the 9th floor and was believed to have been caused by a short-circuit.

All employees were evacuated from the10-storey building.

NGO Islamic Consumers Association Malaysia (PPIM), led by Datuk Nadzim Johan, and Pertubuhan Peribumi Perkasa (Perkasa) Selangor representative Abu Bakar Yahya arrived at noon to meet with a Mais representative.

They had urged Mais not to bow down to the Selangor government's demands that it return the Bibles it had seized from the Bible Society of Malaysia (BSM).

Meanwhile, when contacted by The Malaysian Insider, Selangor Fire and Rescue department assistant director of operations Mohd Sani Harul confirmed the incident, saying that his men arrived at the scene at 12.49pm after receiving a call from the public at 12.45pm earlier.

Mohd Sani said that initial investigations by the fire department found the fire was caused by a faulty air condition transformer on the 9th floor.

He confirmed no one was injured in the incident.

Asked if there was a possibility of foul play, Mohd Sani said the cause of the fire was “still being investigated”.

During the meeting between NGOs with Mais representatives earlier, Nasional Defenders of Islam (Pembela) chairman Hafiz Nordin said there was no need for Selangor Islamic Religious Department (Jais) to return the Bibles as its contents went against the decree of the Sultan of Selangor and the state enactments.

“The Bibles contain the word 'Allah' and that clearly goes against the Sultan of Selangor's decree that non-Muslims cannot use the word,” said Hafiz.

The NGOs also plan to lodge a police report against Attorney-General Tan Sri Abdul Gani Patail, whom they said had compared the Bible to the book of the Gospels.

"Comparing the Gospels to the Bible is a sharia offence.

"We are making reports so that he would be investigated, if he does not want to be charged, he needs to resign,” said Hafiz.

Gani in his statement last week said his office would not take action against BSM over the AlKitab (Bahasa Malaysia Bibles) and Bup Kudus (Iban-language Bibles) seized last January, and ordered for the case to be closed.

He said that it was found that the seized 321 books did not run afoul of Section 9 (1) of the 1988 Enactment.

The state government had then ordered Jais to return the Bibles to BSM.

However, Mais had refused, saying that the Selangor state government did not have the right nor jurisdiction to order the return of items confiscated in the course of an investigation.

Mais had then asked for the state prosecutor to refer the matter to the court. – June 16, 2014.