New Delhi: Malaysia’s acting head of mission was summoned to the Ministry of External Affairs on Saturday for India to lodge a protest over remarks made by Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamed against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019.
The summoning of the Malaysian embassy’s charge d’affairs took place a day after India had issued an official statement urging the Malaysian leader to refrain from commenting on India’s internal affairs, “especially without a right understanding of the facts”.
Mohamad had expressed regret that India as a secular state would take action to “deprive some Muslims of their citizenship”. “Already people are dying because of this law, so why is there a necessity to do this thing when all this while, for 70 years almost, they have lived together as citizens without any problems,” he added.
As per official sources, the charge d’affaires of the Malaysian embassy was told that “such remarks are neither in keeping with accepted diplomatic practice of non-interference in each other’s internal affairs, nor with the state of our bilateral relations”.
“It was also conveyed that such remarks are both ill-informed and insensitive. Malaysia was asked to take a long-term and strategic view of the bilateral relations,” added sources.
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A day earlier, India had described Mohamad’s comment were “factually inaccurate” and called upon “Malaysia to refrain from commenting on internal developments in India, especially without a right understanding of the facts.
It was not the first source of friction between India and Malaysia in recent months.
In October, India had also asked Malaysia to “bear in mind the friendly relations between the two countries and desist from making such comments” after the Malaysian prime minister had raised Kashmir at United Nations General Assembly.