1. Malaysiakini reported today, “Nine months after the death of A. Kugan, a police personnel was charged at the Petaling Jaya Sessions Court with causing hurt to the 23-year-old detainee”. I am sure the police have done a very thorough investigation because it took them 9 months for the AG to finally conclude the matter that took place in a police station.
2. At the beginning when the death, Selangor CPO, Dato Khalid released a few statements related to the criminal nature of Kugan background. The message that he was trying to convey drew public criticism because he implied that the death is acceptable since Kugan is a criminal. He was trying to protect his men as well as the image of the force. Wrongfully, I disagree with him as it has brought shame to the police force.
3. It is not my intent to protect Kugan or defamed the Police. I hope my writing is not being taken as a as indication to protect an alleged or an actual criminal. Whether a person is actually a criminal, he still has rights.
4. The police are regarded as a public protector. In doing their job, they have to face many risk and sometimes has to resort to some extreme measures to extort evidence from uncooperative individuals. In the case of Kugan, the Selangor CPO says that he was a member of a car smuggling syndicate and he was uncooperative. Being uncooperative means he has to suffer in order to extract information. This led to his death. No matter who is being interrogated, no one should die while they are in the police custody. The police role is to investigate but not to pass judgment or sentences. That is the role of the court.
5. After a long lull and intermittent community uproar, I was not surprised to read that a lowly L/Cpl was charged for the death. To charge one person raised more questions than shutting people’s up. Maybe he whacked Kugan with a rubber hose but did he did not do it for the fun of it or did he do it because he was ordered to. Sometimes in a murder, the person who pulled the trigger may be less guilty than the person who ordered the person is to be shot.
6. A long time ago my uncle who had retired as the Terengganu CID chief told us a story on how the police goes about and do their interrogation. Their favorite is to use a rubber hose to whack criminals until they get whatever information they wanted. Apparently using rubber hose is painful but does not leave external physical trauma. The way I see it is that the L/Cpl had acted within the norms of the “approved method to extract confession” or in other words he had acted according to the written or unwritten SOP.
7. Is it really possible that the L/Cpl had acted on his own without orders from any of his superiors? Surely he needs the blessing of the Sjn or the I/O or other officers. Is it really the case that had acted alone? I would be extremely surprised if that is the case. Why is it that the I/O or anyone else was not charged baffles me?
8. In a Police Station there is always an officer in charge of the station. He is popularly called the “OC Balai”. It appears that he has allowed such a thing to take place within his “house”. As a man that is responsible of the happening within the station, he is fully responsible for any illegal activity that takes place in the balai. Then there are other bystanders who probably took the opportunity to add kick,drag punch etc while Kugan was in a handcuff. Shouldn’t these people be charged as well?
9. This lowly L/Cpl is the scapegoat that is meant to appease the angry crowd and to serve as a political tool. I would be very interested to know why the AG has decided not to charge the others on other lesser charges. The family claims that there are a total 11 people involved. I don’t know where they get the numbers from but certainly it is very unusual to have 11 people interrogating Kugan.
10. I do hope when this case goes to court, the truth will be revealed. The methods of interrogation and who are the other players will surfaces. When that happens, the AG will have a bigger headache in trying to justify the public on why they chose to charged a lowly L/Cpl. At the moment the rest (et al) can still sleep in peace for the time being for defaming the image of the Police Force.
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