Tuan Ibrahim said the 14 villagers, who were supporters of the party, died as martyrs in the confrontation with police in the remote village of Memali in Baling, Kedah, in 1985.
He accused Mahathir, who was the prime minister at the time of the tragedy but who now leads the Pakatan Harapan (PH) opposition pact, of continuing to humiliate the victims of a police attack.
“Even the Sultan of Kedah was moved to visit the graves of the victims.
“If the Memali victims died a senseless death, was the action of the sultan wrong?
“Tun Mahathir and the opposition pact must be desperate to bring up an issue that happened so long ago. Tun Mahathir has overstepped the ethics of Muslims and Malays with his accusation,” he said at a news conference at the PAS headquarters here.
Last night, Mahathir said the 14 villagers killed in the incident died a senseless death, and not as martyrs as claimed by PAS.
He blamed the incident on the “Amanat Haji Hadi”, a controversial speech made in 1981 by PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang in which he allegedly decreed that anyone who killed “kafir” (unbeliever) government officers would become a martyr on his death.
Besides the 14 villagers who died, four policemen were also killed in the Memali clash.
Tuan Ibrahim said Mahathir should not continue to play on the issue, and instead take the incident to heart and apologise to the victims’ families.
“I had previously asked his son, Datuk Seri Mukhriz, to appeal to his father to meet the victims’ families and apologise to them.
“However, Mukhriz responded that he himself had met the families of the victims,” he said, and reiterated his party’s call to the government to form a Royal Commission of Inquiry to investigate the Memali tragedy so that further similar accusations would no longer arise.
“But I am convinced people like Dr Mahathir won’t apologise,” he added.
He expressed surprise that someone like Mahathir was still wanted by people to once again become the prime minister, supposedly because he had repented.
“I don’t see any repentance on his face,” he said.