During a lecture Zakir Naik held on 8 August 2019 in Kota Bharu, Kelantan state, Malaysia, he said that Chinese people living in Malaysia are "old guests" who should return to China, suggesting they needed to be forcibly deported out of the country. In the same lecture, he also claimed that Hindus living in Malaysia had "100 times more rights" than the Muslim minority in India, and were more loyal to Indian PM Narendra Modi than to Malaysian PM Mahathir Mohamad. These comments sparked outrage across Malaysian society, being critised as inciting racial and religious hatred and disrupting the peace and harmony between communities.