At the moment, he said, there was no particular body with power or authority to monitor temples nationwide.

“Such a body should be placed under the Prime Minister’s Department,” he told FMT.

“The board would not take over the temples, but it should have the power to ask temples to be transparent and disclose their accounts.”

Although there is no board with nationwide powers in Malaysia, the Penang Hindu Endowment Board, established during the colonial era, controls several temples in the state. It comes under the purview of the state government.

A long-standing tussle between One City Development Sdn Bhd, which owns the land on which the Sri Maha Mariamman temple sits, and a faction of the temple that does not want it to be relocated, boiled over in violence earlier this week.

On Monday, a group of people intruded into the temple resulting in a fight. Cars were torched and the temple itself was damaged. On Tuesday, some of the devotees set more cars on fire and damaged the office of One City.

Home Minister Muhyiddin Yassin said police had determined that the group which accosted the devotees at the temple in Subang Jaya on Monday had been hired by lawyers who worked for One City.