'Waytha did speak out on Dharmendran's death'

I refer to the article that was published in Malaysiakini titled ‘Kula flays Waytha for silence on custodial death' on May 27, 2013 written for him by the PKR herald Terence Netto.

The article is entirely baseless. Its basic premise is false. Its arguments are at best nothing more than self-serving political opportunism.

It is written by Terence Netto who claims a career of 40 years in journalism. It is shameful what that 40 years has come to be.

The comments section of the article and the Red Bean Facebook circuits will just amplify these lies and perform the greatest disservice to our country, spreading untruths in volumes.

Kula for his part, supposedly a senior legislator, exposes his shallowness and his political opportunism in the untruths in his utterances. It all ill-portends a Goebbellian new world for Malaysia.

Terence Netto quotes Kula about Waytha's ‘deafening silence'. I wonder what they really mean.

They should refer to the article ‘Lame excuses from the cops' in another online portal FMT on May 23, a full four days before Terence's and Kula's article in Malaysiakini.

Waytha makes it plain in that article just where he stands on these unacceptable acts of deaths in custody. Just for the record, here are a few key things that Waytha mentioned in that article.

Waythamoorthy also called on Inspector-General of Police Khalid Abu Bakar to immediately suspend all those suspects allegedly involved in the death of Darmindran, 32.

He said the police cannot go on giving lame excuses on such incidents because there were one too many deaths in police custody.

"Public will no longer entertain such lame excuses," he told FMT here today.

He said it was time for the police to implement preventive measures to stop these deaths such as installing closed circuit television cameras in all police stations and lock-ups.

He also called the government to amend the law to allow formation of area citizen groups who would be given round-the-clock access to their respective neighbourhood police stations and detainees in police lock-ups.

Citing several countries which practiced it, he said these groups shall be made of neighbourhood residents with good and credible public standing, and not necessary they have to be educated or professional persons.

He said citizen groups shall be allowed to visit police stations and detainees at any time to have first-hand look at their captive conditions.

"It's important for the police to take these pro-active steps immediately to restore waning public trust and confidence in the force," said Waythamoorthy.

Terence nor Kula cannot be excused for non-knowledge of this article. After all this is in the public domain and they are clearly operators in this domain.

I have therefore to conclude that they are the ill-intentioned ones, whose job now, it seems to be, to spread untruths and outright lies and try and politicise and make political capital out of every misfortune that befalls the Indians in the country.

It is time that Malaysia and Malaysians rise above the grips of a new trend arising where minds will be controlled by lies in the social media, by distortions of truths, by half-truths and just by repetitions and intensity of misinformation.

We all need a better Malaysia. The Malaysia we all need is one where truth will prevail. Not one in the grips of these untruths.

We do not need to descend down this path shown us by opportunistic leaders and pied pipers like Kula and Terence Netto whose job now it seems to be to mislead.

Hindraf for its part will continue not only to campaign against deaths in police custody, but also to understand the root causes of these occurrences and to seek permanent solutions to prevent such deaths.

Waytha's new position in government will open up new possibilities for addressing problems of this nature and we will pursue permanent resolutions through these new possibilities.

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N GANESAN is Hindraf national adviser.