AS the dust settles after the attack at the Seafied Sri Maha Mariamman temple in Subang Jaya today, questions remain: Who were the attackers and what were their motive?

Police had said that the attackers were Malays. The jury is still out on the motive.

Was it because the devotees had defied a court order to relocate the temple? Or was this a racial attack?

Based on reports and eyewitness accounts, a group of people, ranging from 50 to 150, armed with sticks, iron rods and machetes, stormed the temple grounds at 2.15am.

At that time, there were around 100 devotees at the temple. These devotees have been guarding the temple since Friday to stop a relocation order from the court.

The attackers had allegedly held some people hostage, beaten up the devotees and destroyed some parts of the temple. They have also been accused of desecrating the temple by exposing themselves to the deities in the temple.

The devotees, backed by civil society groups, are blaming the developer who owns the land for sending in the thugs.

The developer, One City Development Sdn Bhd, however, said it was not behind the attack, adding that the allegations against them were malicious.

The police too, did not help bring clarity to the matter. Subang Jaya police was the first to comment on the matter and said the fight was between two Indian groups over the temple relocation which should have happened on November 22.

There were already complaints that the police were slow in reacting after emergency calls were made to them over the early morning attack. Witnesses said the police were late by about 90 minutes.

“The cops who were the first on the scene were busy monitoring the traffic when our attackers were still around,” one devotee told The Malaysian Insight.

While news of the attack started spreading, along came the many theories: What if this was a planned racial attack, asked many Indians in social media groups. Even the devotees who started gathering in numbers were raising similar questions.

WhatsApp chats were filled with unsubstantiated claims that it was Umno and PAS who were behind these attacks so that they can rally the Malays to be with them.

They said this was to gather the Malays for the anti-ICERD rally on December 8, to derail Pakatan Harapan, so the chats went.

The date of the attack is also significant, for November 25 is etched in the memory of Hindu activists as the day they hit the streets in the Hindraf rally of 2007 over rampant temple demolitions and discrimination against the Indian community by the then BN government.

Now, 11 years and a day later, another temple is attacked, but this time under a government many of these activists voted in favour of the old BN regime.

As such it is understandable that these devotees and activists are angry with the Indian leaders in Pakatan Harapan, some of whom became household names for fighting against temple demolitions during the BN administration.

PKR’s young Batu MP, P. Prabakaran faced the wrath of the devotees’ when he visited the temple to offer support this afternoon. They heckled him, saying that they didn’t want politicians to politicise the issue.

Other PH Indian leaders who previously played a role in trying to find a solution to the temple issue, were happy to just issue statements. Perhaps they feared facing the devotees.

But the same set of devotees and activists who expressed their anger at PH politicians welcomed MIC leaders into the temple. Is it because these activists know that the PH leaders are keen to relocate the temple while the MIC chaps, being in the opposition now, would oppose such a move?

So, who is playing politics now?

The solution to the issue has been found and agreed upon but some people want to keep moving the goalposts for their own reasons.

This is purely an issue about property ownership. The developer says they would never resort to such tricks to get the temple relocated. The devotees say only the developer could send in the thugs.

While the fight between the developer and devotees continue, other conspiracy theories are being thrown in to befuddle the issue, and perhaps to prolong the matter.

The best hope now is for the police to quickly end their probe and reveal details of the attackers, and who actually sent them.

For now, social media is abuzz with allegations that the attackers are members of two Malay gangs, supposedly paid RM300 each to take control of the temple until a team from the developer and the police arrived at the scene to execute the court order.

If true, then the developer lied today. Only the police can tell us that.

It shouldn’t be too difficult for them as after all, they have seven suspects in their custody, about 10 vehicles left behind by the attackers and a handful of MyKads belonging to the alleged attackers.

So, police will have to move fast. The longer this drags on, there is a real risk of this attack evolving from a property dispute into one with racial overtones. – November 26, 2018.