MIC defends both ministers linked to Serdang Hospital mortuary incident

KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 26 — The MIC will defend the two deputy ministers if the authorities find them to have broken the law in the incident where a crowd raided the mortuary of Serdang Hospital last Tuesday.

“We will hire as many lawyers to defend them if they are charged in court,” MIC president Datuk Seri S Samy Vellu said in a statement issued here today.

He was commenting on Home Minister Datuk Seri Syed Hamid Albar’s statement yesterday that Datuk K Devamany and Senator T Murugiah, both deputy ministers in the Prime Minister’s Department, might likely face action if they were present at the mortuary when the crowd barged into the mortuary to examine the body of suspected car thief A Kugan who had died while in police custody.

The MIC president said it did not matter from which party the two deputy ministers hailed from as long as they were Indians “because the MIC represents the Indian community in Malaysia”.

While Devamany is a MIC member, Murugiah is from the People’s Progressive Party (PPP).

Devamany was among nine people quizzed by the police yesterday over the incident. It was also reported that 11 policemen being investigated for allegedly causing hurt to Kugan would not be spared action if they were found to have abused their powers.

Kugan, 22, who was detained on Jan 15 at the Taipan police station in Subang Jaya on suspicion of being involved in the theft of luxury cars in Sungai Chua, Kajang, died while being questioned on Tuesday.

Selangor police chief Datuk Khalid Abu Bakar had said a post-mortem found that Kugan had died due to fluid in his lungs, but Kugan’s family sought a second post-mortem, insisting that Kugan had died of injuries.

Attorney-General Tan Sri Abdul Gani Patail said later that Kugan’s death had been classified as murder.

Samy Vellu also urged Syed Hamid to ensure that the police probe into Kugan’s death was transparent.

“The MIC will be monitoring the case but we are confident that the police will leave no stones unturned in their investigation,” he said. — Bernama