Alleged residents of an East China city expressed heated online opposition on Tuesday to a government plan to move their ancestors' tombs and make room for a mosque.

In what the government regards as "a big step toward promoting national unity and religious harmony," Suzhou ethnic and religious bureau on January 10 announced its agreement in principle to build the mosque and said it would appoint a group to handle relocation of the tombs.

The Suzhou government was planning to move his family tombs for the mosque, internet user fulvfuwei posted on his official microblog on Monday.

"You are making the mosque for overseas students, merchants and foreign officials in Suzhou! You are disturbing the peaceful rest of our ancestors for a mosque!" the post read.

The incident triggered heated debate after Xi Wuyi, an expert on Marxism at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and a staunch critic of the "pan-halal tendency," reposted fulvfuwei's post.

"Does it need the government to use fiscal revenue to build a mosque in order to promote national unity?" Xi told the Global Times. "Did the government ask the public's opinion about relocating the tombs?"

The Constitution regulates the separation of religion and state, said Xi. Local government should not use fiscal revenues to build religious buildings, she said.

The Suzhou government plans to spend 20 million yuan ($3 million) building the mosque and a halal restaurant, news site gn.cri.cn reported, citing a deputy chairman of the Islamic Association in Suzhou.

Muslims in Suzhou include overseas students, merchants and officials from foreign governmental institutions. Dozens go to the old mosque to pray, said the report.

"Some netizens are hyping up the plan for a new mosque. Building a new one in Suzhou is to solve the problem when a religion is developing," an official from the Islamic Association in Suzhou told the Global Times on Tuesday. He refused to be fully named.

Suzhou has one approved mosque. The mosque's practitioners rent venues on religious holidays. China's Regulation on Religious Affairs stipulates that citizens' collective religious activities shall be held in registered religious sites and organized by the site or a religious body.

"Leaders of the bureau have been discussing the plan from Monday and have not yet come to a conclusion," an employee at Suzhou ethnic and religious bureau told the Global Times.