The assault of a man for allegedly honking repeatedly while Muslims were performing Friday prayers at a surau in Taman Austin Perdana in Johor Baru shows the society’s low level of tolerance.

Deputy Home Minister Nur Jazlan Mohamed said the riots on May 13, 1969, should serve as a lesson and the public should not allow intolerance to result in such an ugly incident.

“This issue will not occur if there is tolerance and understanding among members of the public, especially young people. Besides, the opposition used to say ‘do not try to scare people by racial conflict’, but what we saw yesterday did show that it can occur easily.

He was commenting on the issue at the opening ceremony of the Red Crescent Day celebration at the Dewan Bangunan Bulan Sabit Merah, Johor Baru branch, today.

Nur Jazlan hopes the public would prioritise tolerance to ensure that the country would be free from racial and religious conflicts that could bring chaos.

In yesterday’s incident, an engineer, 28, suffered head and body injuries after he was assaulted by a group of angry men after he allegedly honked repeatedly outside a surau during Friday prayers as his car was blocked by vehicles parked on both sides of the road.

After prayers, it was believed that a group of men emerged from the surau to confront the driver, beat him up and damaged his car.

Part of the incident was recorded by an onlooker and the video had since been making rounds on social media and instant messaging applications.

In another development, Nur Jazlan said that gangsterism activities were alarming and required serious efforts to curb it from spreading to all levels of society.

According to him, the group had become bolder now by recruiting new members among secondary school students and it was no more limited to ordinary people.

“Therefore, the police are conducting operations to combat gangsterism and thus far, operations have been conducted in Johor, Kedah and Penang while other states will follow suit,” he said.

- Bernama