Defence Minister Mohamad Sabu, asked to offer his views by opposition lawmakers in parliament, said he would reserve comment until after an investigation by the home ministry.

Earlier, other lawmakers engaged in a war of words after government MP M. Karupaiya, an armed forces veteran, said his private view was that there was “no problem” with the return of Chin Peng’s ashes to his country of birth.

That comment sparked a flurry of criticism from opposition MPs before the House speaker ticked off the lawmakers for using parliament to debate history.

Annuar Musa – a heavyweight from the opposition United Malays National Organisation (Umno) party – struck a conciliatory tone, saying it was acceptable to “respect the wishes” of the deceased’s next of kin as long as they were not illegal.

“Chin Peng and others are the same once they die. Our problems are with people who are still alive,” said Annuar, whose party – once led by Najib – was responsible for barring Chin Peng from entering Malaysia when he was alive, and later barred his remains from entering the country.

Others opposition politicians, however, had contrary views.

“What is the purpose? The country is against the communist system and thousands of communist fighters caused the death of our [armed] forces and civilians,” said Tuan Ibrahim Tuan Man, deputy president of Islamist party PAS.

“If it is to commemorate the communist struggle, I think a big mistake had been made. This move did not take into consideration the feelings of former service personnel and police,” he was quoted as saying by the Malaysiakini portal.

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Several armed forces veteran and police associations have condemned the group that brought back Chin Peng’s ashes.

Born Ong Boon Hua to Fujianese immigrants in Perak, the guerilla leader is believed to have joined the MCP at age 15. He took on the nom de guerre Chin Peng, and was part of the communists’ British-backed resistance against the Japanese occupation of Malaya during World War II.

He later took control of the party and, in a bid for self determination under communist terms, ordered an insurrection against the British colonial administration, and later the Malay nationalist-led administration of independent Malaysia.

The insurgency claimed the lives of an estimated 2,478 civilians and more than a thousand police and military personnel.

Support for the MCP, and the party’s influence – predominantly among Malaysia’s ethnic Chinese minority – waned in the 1970s after the late Malaysian prime minister Abdul Razak visited China and implored Mao Zedong to stop aiding the MCP.

Chin Peng later settled in Thailand, and he and some 1,200 guerillas formally laid down their arms in 1989, ending one of the world’s longest insurgencies.

Malaysian academics said they believed the latest development surrounding Chin Peng was unlikely to snowball into something bigger, especially because his remains had already been spread.

“I do not think it is a sensitive issue at this point of time, particularly [because] his ashes have been scattered over the sea and the mountains,” said political scientist Khong Kim Hoong of HELP University.

However, the scholars said it was unlikely Chin Peng’s memory would be rehabilitated – particularly among Malaysia’s majority-Malay population.

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One academic who declined to be named said the Malays “have a special kind of hatred for Chin Peng and his ilk”.

“Remember the CPM led an insurgency that not only challenged British rule but also potentially Malay dominance in this country,” the researcher said.