A spokesman for the committee, Sophian Mohd Zain, said there were about 600 bodies within the 2.5m which the state authorities claim was road reserve into which the cemetery had encroached.

He was among about 60 people who gathered near the cemetery to protest against the state government today.

Sophian said even if it was true that the cemetery had encroached onto the road reserve, it remained legal under Muslim law.

He claimed that a 2004 fatwa by the Penang Islamic authorities said that all Muslim cemeteries were considered wakaf (endowment) even if they were “undocumented” and on road reserves.

Sophian said the Penang government should therefore not gazette the said encroached land as it will cause confusion and show disrespect for the families of the dead interred there.

Deputy Chief Minister I Ahmad Zakiyuddin Abdul Rahman recently revealed that the burial land had encroached 2.5 metres into the road reserve along Jalan Sultan Azlan Shah.

This has become an issue because the mosque committee claims that the proposed Bayan Lepas LRT was supposed to veer behind the mosque and the adjacent cemetery but that the route “suddenly changed” after the mosque was torn down recently to be rebuilt.

The LRT builders had told the mosque committee in February that the route would take a straight path along Jalan Sultan Azlan Shah and would cut into the cemetery as well.

This offended the mosque committee, which then held protests after Friday prayers for two consecutive weeks outside Komtar, demanding that the alignment be changed.

The Penang government then said it would not touch “even an inch” of the mosque or cemetery land, or its airspace. The alignment would instead be parallel to Jalan Sultan Azlan Shah, fronting the mosque.

In an immediate response to Sophian’s statement, Zakiyuddin said: “We have earlier said the Penang Islamic Religious Affairs Council will take appropriate action in this matter.

“This stands and we will follow any legal directives.”