Citing their constitutional right to freedom of religion, the group have asked Kepong Development Sdn Bhd to relocate the temple and the deity in it to another location, instead of merely demolishing it.

According to them, the Hock Sui Tong temple has been around for more than 63 years and is frequented by over 1,000 devotees.

Hence, despite the development company’s rightful ownership of the land, it should, at the very least, respect the sentiments of the Chinese community living in the area, the group said.

“The area was initially occupied by 526 settlers whom the developers labelled as squatters,” said the group’s lawyer, P Uthayakumar.

“The settlers have been relocated to a low-cost housing estate in Laman Damai and were allowed to purchase the property at RM42,000 per unit.

“But at the initial stage of the development project, the settlers had been promised that the temple would be relocated to an area near the resettled community, not demolished.”

Uthayakumar and the group he is representing staged a small protest outside the Kuala Lumpur Courts Complex this morning.

They were at the court to apply for Tan and 168 of the temple’s devotees to be named as defendants in a suit filed by Kepong Development, which is seeking to demolish the temple.

The suit currently named the temple’s priest, Ng Ah Sang, as the defendant.

Lai Piang Yong, a senior devotee at the temple and one of those who wanted to be named as defendants in the suit, said they were merely trying to protect their place of worship.

“I have been going there for 35 years. My four children grew up praying at the same temple all their lives.”

He then pointed out the “discrimination” against the religion, saying in every residential area, a mosque or a church would be built for the respective communities.

The same treatment was not provided for the Taoist community in the Laman Damai area, he added.

“All the flat units in the three blocks are owned completely by the Chinese. But the developer has refused to relocate our temple, or even build a new one for us.

“Instead, they have built a surau within the compound when there are no Malays residing there.

“The federal constitution clearly provides for freedom of religion, and states that everyone is equal.”

He said it was on this basis that they had requested for the developer to provide them with a plot of land to relocate their temple.

However, the developer had refused to meet with them to even discuss such a possibility, he added.