Permatang Pauh: Najib's 'Hindu practices'

Battle heats up with sworn statement of Najib's 'Hindu practices' August 24 2008 - Malaysian Insider KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 24 — The Permatang Pauh by-election has sizzled up a notch with the Malaysia Today' s latest posting of another statutory declaration that claimed Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Abdul Razak allegedly practises Hindu rituals to ward off evil. The Malaysia Today news portal, edited by Raja Petra Kamaruddin, who has vowed to deny Najib a chance to be Prime Minister, put up the sworn statement by Thagarajoo Thangavelu who claimed to be a driver for businessman Datuk Kenneth Eswaran and formerly for politician Datuk K.S. Nallakaruppan in a posting titled "Najib: Muslim by birth, Hindu by practice". The Malaysian public has been inundated with statutory declarations with this being the third such statutory declaration in the last couple of months, starting with private investigator P. Balasubramaniam's two sworn statements about Najib's links with murdered Mongolian model Altantuya Shaariibuu and Pusrawi's Dr Mohamad Osman's statement relating to his medical examination of Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlan who has accused Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim of sodomy. "Thagarajoo, Nallakaruppan's one-time driver, swears he brought Mr Ji to Najib's house every month to perform Hindu prayers and rituals. And it appears it is still going on until today. Does that, therefore, render Najib's oath, performed the so-called 'proper' Islamic way, null and void?" was the one line in the posting apart from a news article that Najib had sworn on the Quran that he did not know Altantuya. In the statutory declaration dated Aug 22 and made in Kuala Lumpur, Thagarajoo claimed Eswaran was a close friend of Najib and had brought a Hindu priest from Kerala named Mr Ji to perform rituals regularly at the deputy prime minister's private residence in Jalan Duta and also at the official residence in Putrajaya. He also claimed that the priest had performed similar rituals before the Ijok by-election to ensure Barisan Nasional's victory and also to prevent prime minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi from marrying Datin Seri Jeanne Abdullah. Thagarajoo claimed he feared the priest might be asked to conduct similar rituals in the Permatang Pauh by-election. Officials in Najib's entourage have declined comment on the posting. Najib is leading the Barisan Nasional campaign in the Permatang Pauh by-election which is on Aug 26. ...source