JHEAIK to investigate alleged superstitious practices at Gunung Jerai - Kedah MB

SIK: The Kedah state government will hand it over to the Kedah Islamic Religious Affairs Department (JHEAIK) to investigate whether there were superstitious practices taking place in Gunung Jerai near Yan as highlighted on social media recently.

Kedah Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Muhammad Sanusi Md Nor said the state government did not want to arbitrarily make a ruling that the practice of bathing at the 'Telaga Tok Syeikh' well was superstitious, because it would depend on one's intentions in doing so.

"Some people go up to (the well) to meditate, some people for recreation, some people think that the water from this well can make medicine...so I leave it to the authorities to investigate things like this," he told reporters after the Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources' (KeTSA) Aidilfitri event here today.

The one-minute viral video, among others, showed visitors bathing and performing ablution at Telaga Tok Syeikh before they were believed to scale the mountain to perform the next ritual.

Muhammad Sanusi said activities that were against Islamic law did not only take place atop Gunung Jerai, and that there were more 'evils' that took place 'below'.

In another development, he said the state government had to postpone the repair work on the leaking subsea pipeline involving an allocation of RM50 million until the integrity audit of the pipeline was completed.

He said the audit needed to be done to ensure that the repair work on the pipeline from the mainland to Langkawi would be more efficient, as well as to prevent new leaks.

"If we do not conduct an integrity audit on the pipeline, there is a risk that strong water pressure will cause new leaks on the pipeline.

"So, we need to conduct an audit first so that we can be sure the pipeline is safe for repair work, otherwise we will be wasting RM50 million to repair the 23 existing holes along the pipeline," he said, adding that the state government had applied for additional allocation from the Federal Government to conduct the audit.

-- BERNAMA