Hakam said if no such policy is put in place, “every little individual non-ethnic incident can be dressed up as a collective polarising racial issue, be it a road accident involving different races, or the Seafield temple incident which was essentially a dispute over land between a developer and the occupiers”.

“Measures should be put in place to defuse racial characterisation of incidents, with education and awareness and sensitisation programmes, starting from our school children and extending to all sectors and levels of society to spread cross-communal solidarity,” its president Gurdial Singh Nijar said in a statement.

A harmony and reconciliation commission, as proposed by Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Mujahid Yusof Rawa, to combat extremism and bigotry in the country should also be set up, he said.

“That is what we all expect and deserve from a new government in a New Malaysia.”

Gurdial Singh’s comments came a day after the Malaysian Consultative Council of Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Sikhism and Taoism (MCCBCHST) claimed that fireman Muhammad Adib Mohd Kassim’s death was being heavily politicised, with attempts to turn it into a racial and religious issue.

Hakam said it was clear the Seafield temple incident was not racially motivated, but admitted that the reaction by some politicians might be deemed as “insensitive and inappropriate”.

Adib who was severely injured during a fracas at a temple in Subang Jaya last month, died on Dec 17.

The 24-year-old was part of the team of firefighters who rushed to USJ25 following a protest over the relocation of the Sri Maha Mariamman temple which saw rioters setting vehicles on fire.

He was dragged out of the Emergency Medical Rescue Services vehicle and was assaulted.