Sugumar to be laid to rest tomorrow

Sugumar's body will be laid to rest tomorrow evening after almost four months in the morgue awaiting a second autopsy.

PETALING JAYA: PKR vice president N Surendran said today that the family of C Sugumar has given up on the crusade for a second autopsy but will continue to fight for justice.

“The family along with us lawyers had given the government a 48 hour ultimatum to allow a second autopsy. They have kept mum and refused it.

“The prime minister Najib Tun Razak and the health minister S Subramaniam have completely ignored the cries of a grieving family,” said the Padang Serai MP.

“The family has vowed not to give up in fighting for justice though. They want those responsible to be charged no matter who they are,” he added.

Sugumar, a 40 year old security guard was allegedly chased, handcuffed and beaten to death by police and members of the public.

Surendran said that although the second autopsy would have been useful, they are going to bank on the eyewitness’ statement and pressure those relevant to investigate.

“We will continue to pressure the government and the police to take action. They have still not investigated the case based on the eyewitness statements,” he said.

“We have three eyewitnesses altogether, all of which explained the whole scenario of the incident that took place. Yet, there has been no investigations,” he added.

According to Surendran, the family intends to perform prayers in front of the Kajang district police headquarters before the body is sent to the crematorium.

“The family is not satisfied, justice was never served till the very end. They want to show the authorities and the general public the amount of sufferings they had endured,” he said.

“The family will also make a final stand on their next cause of action after further discussion with the lawyers,”he added.

The funeral is to be held at the residence of Sugumar’s family in Taman Sri Nanding, Hulu Langat at 1pm tomorrow.

Malay NGOs slam Najib’s brother for backing AirAsia X CEO

KUALA LUMPUR, June 11 – Malay-Muslim groups attacked CIMB Group chief executive Datuk

Seri Nazir Razak today for defending AirAsia X leader Azran Osman Rani, labelling him a Malay who has forgotten his roots.

Nazir (picture) praised the captain of the long-haul budget airline yesterday for making a stand against Umno-owned Malay newspaper Utusan Malaysia’s purported racial instigation after the May 5 general polls, with the younger brother of Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak saying it showed the “mark of a leader”.

“Nazir and Azran are the two best examples of Malays who fit the proverb, ‘Seperti kacang lupakan kulit’,” said the Malay-Muslim NGO Coalition in a statement today.

“Hello Nazir and Azran, remember your roots and don’t ever be proud or arrogant because of your money, status and wealth. What you two possess are the fruit of the hard labour of your Malay ancestors, who sacrificed their life, soul and spirit to defend this blessed land,” it added.

Utusan Malaysia attacked Azran for most of last month after the airline executive criticised the right-wing broadsheet on his Twitter account, @azranosmanrani, for what he reportedly saw as racial instigation in the aftermath of the divisive 13th general election.

He was also reported to have criticised Malay group Perkasa for its hardline stance as an irrelevant organisation that had caused Malays to be myopic.

In response, the paper published daily views from Perkasa leaders, the Muslim Consumers Society of Malaysia and pro-Umno activists who censured Azran, branding him “arrogant” and a Malay who had forgotten his roots.

AirAsia X chairman Tan Sri Rafizah Aziz and director Datuk Seri Kalimullah Hassan had also come under attack from various groups after the duo had defended Azran’s comments.

Malay rights group Perkasa, the Ex-Servicemen Association of Malaysia, Malaysian Reformists Movement and the Malaysian Malay Network were among the groups that lashed out at both Rafidah and Kalimullah and demanded the duo apologise for their remarks against Utusan, which they say is the voice of the Malays.

The Malay-Muslim NGO coalition also said today that not many Malays were as fortunate as Nazir, who was born in an upper middle-class family with his older brother Najib and late father, Tun Abdul Razak Hussein, as prime ministers, besides having a cousin, Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein, as Defence Minister.

“Nazir, in his ivory tower, of course would never have experienced the bitterness and difficulties that impoverished Malays face,” it said.

“Azran, on the other hand, is a nephew to an... opposition leader who is known for splitting the country, destroying political stability and threatening national security by organising a series of illegal rallies across the country, just because he is disappointed for failing to achieve his ambitions of reaching Putrajaya,” added the coalition, referring to Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.

Are BN-aligned murderers being protected by police?

COMMENT The culture of the Malaysian police has caused too many innocent people grievous hurt.

This hurt ranges from failing to protect us from petty crimes and failing to deliver justice for crimes committed against us, all the way to illegal assaults and deaths in custody.

Many of us have been direct victims, but almost all of us are at most one degree of separation from someone who has suffered because the police are not doing their job right.

This certainly does not apply to all Malaysian police, but it applies to enough to raise serious questions as to what the heck is going on with our police leadership.

On Sunday night, a small candlelight vigil was held at Bukit Aman to focus on the death of K Murugan. Only 20 or so came, but whether this number grows this week, will be up to you.

Murugan had been an aide to K Vasantha Kumar, who contested the parliamentary seat of Tapah representing PKR against MIC’s M Saravanan. Saravanan won, and is now deputy minister in Khairy Jamaluddin’s Youth and Sports Ministry.

The information below was gathered from news sources and conversations I had with the family of the deceased, the lawyer representing them, M Visvanathan (left), and Vasantha Kumar during the candlelight vigil.

On the night of May 1, Murugan organised a ceramah at Taman Sri Bidor, which was located within a MIC stronghold but nonetheless attracted more than 500 people.

Murugan did this despite having received death threats and demands that he withdraws his support for Vasantha Kumar. It does not take an expert criminologist to determine whose supporters had the most motive to make those threats.

Demonstrating great courage in the face of vicious gangsters, Murugan did not back down, but continued to bravely live out his convictions.

On the very night of that ceramah, Murugan got a call, rode off on his motorcycle and was not seen again.
His body was found days later. His face had been smashed, while his body was slashed and tied with barbed wire and 52kg of scrap metal before being dumped into a pond near Batu Gajah.

Blatantly one-sided investigations

It seems that such horrifying violence could have only been inflicted by men who did not believe they would suffer any consequences for the murder. It is almost equally horrifying to see that they may have been right.

As if the tragedy of such a violent death was not enough, Murugan’s family and associates have since been subject to more suffering at the hands of the police.

Some 18 people were identified to “assist with investigations”. Not a single one of these were BN supporters or people aligned to Saravanan.

This is an outrageous injustice in itself. After all, who was it that made the threats against Murugan’s life? Who had the most to gain by ‘removing’ people like Murugan (right)?
How is it that not a single person from the group of people who would make the most obvious suspects is even investigated or questioned?

Instead, the 18 people identified were all friends and associates of Murugan, or members of the public. The manner in which ordinary people have been investigated in this case is shocking.

A relative of Murugan recounted how people who had come to Murugan’s mother’s house to pay their respects and offer condolences were spied upon and then accosted by police.
These people were sharply questioned about the case, and some reported having been slapped by the police. Soon, no one dared to come to see Murugan’s mother, isolating her in the midst of her heartbreaking trauma.

It would be stupid enough for a criminal to visit his victim’s mother; the only thing more stupid than that is for a police personnel to assume that a criminal would do such a thing.

Of the 18 identified, 12 have been arrested. Reports have emerged of their abuse while in custody, with two allegedly being subject to both beatings and electrical shocks. Apparently, in the Royal Malaysian Police Force, (PDRM), this is called “investigation”.

The Perak deputy police chief, A Paramasivam, openly identified one S Marimuthu in the media as a suspect in the case, due to the latter having a “criminal record”.

Marimuthu was a fellow supporter of Vasantha Kumar (left). Not only is it extremely unlikely that a colleague of Murugan had any reason to murder him, it turns out that Marimuthu has absolutely no criminal record whatsoever.
It appears that the police have begun creating false information out of thin air and expect to successfully force it down our throats.

Furthermore, why did Paramasivam have to defame Marimuthu in the media? A simple phone call or polite interview would have cleared up the matter of the criminal record.

When Marimuthu decided to come forward and make a police report regarding the defamation proffered by the police, he was unceremoniously arrested. Thus is the fate of honest citizens, while the police inspector involved in the murder of N Dhamendran is supposedly “still at large”.

Many questions, few answers

There are a great number of accusations flying around regarding Saravanan's involvement in this entire affair. Perhaps it is time this deputy minister stood up and provided his version of the events, especially if he is in fact innocent.

The relative I spoke to kept using the word “unfair”. How can the police only investigate one side? Do they have any real evidence at all, or any cause to detain the people the way they did? In the unlikely event that they did, was there any call for physical abuse and electrical shock torture?

Are the police aware of how blatantly they appear to be working hand in glove with violent gangsters? Are these gangsters in league with BN politicians? Is it getting harder to tell the difference between the three?

The various implications made in this article are serious, but can we be blamed, given the shocking way this “investigation” seems utterly devoid of an objective pursuit of justice?

Multiple layers of harm ripple out like waves from this case. The police have failed to clamp down on brutal gangsterism; they have failed to investigate the people most likely connected to the case; they have arrested, intimidated and tortured innocents.

With every wave, the victims and their families suffer more and more.

Those arrested were remanded for two weeks, and some lost their jobs, forever suffering an undeserved tarnished reputation. We can only imagine the trauma and fear Marimuthu’s (left) wife and two children are now undergoing while he faces uncertainty in the hands of a violent police force.

Yet, maybe they are better off than Murugan’s mother, wife and child, who cannot even hope for his safe return now. Their only hope is justice, and it seems at times a very thin hope at that.

The three of them had lived together in Bidor, so who will take care of them now? Murugan’s mother has been down with a fever since his death, but she still made the two-hour trip down to join the candlelight vigil because the family felt an obligation to do so. Afterwards, her other son drove her to Bidor and came back the same night to go to work the next morning.

Will we let these families feel as if they stand alone?

If your answer is no, and if you want to show and provide support, join us at the next vigil at Bukit Aman, 8.30pm this Wednesday night.

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NATHANIEL TAN hopes to always follow the example of K Selvach Santhiran, one of the only witnesses to ever dare testify in a death in custody case. He tweets @NatAsasi

Best for PSM to go it alone

COMMENT Rather than apply to join Pakatan Rakyat with whom it has deep ideological differences, Parti Sosialis Malaysia (PSM) ought to first build up its support base and show that it is a political group that can garner votes at the polls.

Right now only Dr Jeyakumar Devaraj (left), their only MP (Sungai Siput), is a viable electoral proposition; PSM chairperson Dr Mohd Nasir Hashim (formerly Selangor state representative for Kota Damansara), secretary-general M Arutchelvan (contested in Semenyih in vain twice) and deputy chairperson M Saraswathy (contested Jelapang twice, also in vain) are far from being electable on their own right.

Therefore, PSM wanting to join Pakatan is akin to putting the cart before the horse: it is incumbent upon them to demonstrate that their ideology of socialism commands enough support among voters such that the opposition coalition would want to include them in their fold.

But if you ask the PSM top brass about their application to join Pakatan, reputedly tendered in June last year, it is Pakatan that had wanted them to join rather than the other way round.

Whenever, in the long run-up to GE13, PSM brought up with Pakatan the question of more seats for the party to contest at the general election, they would be told to join first and negotiate later.

While the PSM story that it is Pakatan that had wanted them to ‘join first and discuss later’ is plausible, it must be remembered the more seats - actually, it was really only one seat (Jelapang) - that PSM had wanted was problematic.

So long as Pakatan component, DAP, was unyielding on the Jelapang state seat in Perak that PSM wanted for its deputy president Jayanthi to contest, there was no way that Pakatan could broker a settlement between DAP and PSM, particularly if the latter were adamant that they were only interested in contesting in seats where their proposed candidates had done constituency work.

In other words, Pakatan’s stance vis-à-vis PSM that they ‘join first and discuss later’ was an obvious negotiating tactic to get all opposition parties under one umbrella to project a united front to unseat the ruling BN, which PSM were not averse to admitting was a priority objective.

Really, Pakatan cannot be accused of showing bad faith towards PSM; that after having wanted them to join the coalition, the coalition has decided to give short shrift to the PSM application to join.

To be sure, if PSM were to stick to their position of no-change to their clenched-fist logo and are insistent that socialist nostrums to the problems of the production and distribution of goods in a political economy are superior to social democratic ones, then it is only realistic for PSM to accept that they ought to go it alone, and not want to join Pakatan.  

Out of the loop

DAP chairperson Karpal Singh’s urging for Pakatan to allow PSM to join the opposition coalition, coming as it does after PKR secretary-general Saifuddin Nasution had disclosed that PSM’s application to join had been deliberated and rejected by the Pakatan central leadership council only underscores the point that the DAP veteran is out of the loop where such deliberations are concerned.

Karpal (right) rarely attends Pakatan meetings and so, it is assumed, is dependent on unfailing attendee, party adviser Lim Kit Siang’s, briefings, as to what was decided at central leadership council meetings.

In the instance of PSM’s application to join to Pakatan, it must be assumed that Lim did not bring Karpal up to speed. Hence, Karpal’s groping in the dark about the whole issue of PSM’s application to join Pakatan.

Karpal is as blasé about the finer points of ideological differences between PSM and Pakatan as he is about the differences between the PAS position on syariah and hudud, that it is obligatory of Muslims to support it, and the Pakatan stance on the same issue, that it is mandatory to obtain the support of the people before it can be implemented.

But his compatriots in the Pakatan top brass can no longer be bothered about Karpal’s lack of finesse: what cannot be changed must be endured.

Suffice, it’s best for PSM to mind its own store and demonstrate to the public at large that the socialist way is the way to go.

Some time ago, the indefatigable Arutchelvam (left) spent a month in Hugo Chavez’s socialist haven of Venezuela. He gave what he saw the thumbs-up, never mind the perception of others who the Latin American caudillo was a clown.

In a democracy, people are entitled to gather their rosebuds where they may.

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TERENCE NETTO has been a journalist for four decades. He likes the occupation because it puts him in contact with the eminent without being under the necessity to admire them.

Street protest in support of IPCMC?

Stop State Violence (SSV), a coalition of 30 civil society groups, opined that IPCMC is the only remedy for custodial deaths.

PETALING JAYA: A coalition of NGOs – Stop State Violence (SSV) – has not ruled out taking to the streets in its fight for the establishment of the Independent Police Complaints and Misconduct Commission (IPCMC).

“If taking to the streets is the way for the voices to be heard, so be it,” said coalition member, Tenaganita’s executive director Irene Fernandez.

SSV, a coalition of 30 civil society groups, said the IPCMC is the only way forward to halt custodial deaths as the Enforcement Agency Integrity Commission (EAIC) is nothing but a “toothless tiger without any power of enforcement”.

The coalition also pointed out that it was “ridiculous” for former Transparency International-Malaysia (TI-M) president Paul Low to continue pushing for the EAIC to be revamped instead of establishing the IPCMC.

Said Fernandez: “I cannot understand what Paul Low is trying to say. By him saying that it needs a lot of time, effort and money to establish the IPCMC, doesn’t he realise that a life is precious and cannot be compromised?

“As former TI-M president, he should know about good governance and thus he should be pushing for the establishment of the IPCMC.”

Suaram coordinator R Thevarajan meanwhile said EAIC chief Nor Afizah Hanum Mokhtar’s suggestion that they needed a bigger budget – from the current RM7 mil to RM25 mil annually – was not the issue.

“It is not a question of more money. The root issue is on the prosecution power. After doing investigation, the (EAIC) finding will be referred back to the police force.

“Thus, where is the transparency as in the end, it goes back to the same mechanism, of the police investigating a fellow policeman?” he asked.

Pusat Komas’ Lena Hendry further explained that the IPCMC, as opposed to the EAIC, has the power to initiate its own investigation into any police power abuse cases without the need for a complaint to be made.

“If the EAIC was indeed an oversight mechanism, it would have immediately launched an independent inquiry to get to the truth of the complaints of police power abuses that occurred,” said Hendry.

Intensive campaign

Besides demanding for the immediate establishment of the IPCMC, the coalition also asked for the setting up of an independent Coroner’s Court system to replace the current Magistrate’s Inquest and the ratifying of the “Convention against Torture and the Optional protocol”, followed by necessary laws to eliminate torture.

Hendry added that SSV will begin an intensive campaign to end state violence with a public forum organised at the Bar Council auditorium on June 13.

“We will also come up with a pledge for a commitment from MPs to support the implementation of IPCMC,” said Hendry, adding that an online petition is available at https://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/minister-of-home-affairs-igp-and-chief-commissioner-stop-state-violence.

“We reiterate, that the need for the IPCMC is very high,” said Thevarajan.