My brother died in police custody

THE family of 31-year-old toddy shop assistant R. Gunasegaran who was arrested by police in Sentul on

July 16 is asking for an inquest to determine the cause of his death as he had died in police custody.

The sister of the deceased, R. Ganga Gowri, yesterday lodged a report at Dang Wangi police station.

She is not convinced that her brother had died of a drug related death as she claims to have witnesses who have alleged that they saw her brother being beaten up by police and had died because of the beatings.

A copy of the burial permit issued by the hospital authorities, stated that Gunasegaran died from drug related causes.

In her report, Ganga said she had met the three witnesses, identified only as Ravi, Suresh and Selvam. They were also arrested with her brother at the Sentul police station. She also claimed that her brother was arrested around 5.30pm and had died sometime after 7pm on the same day.

During a Press conference yesterday, Ganga said Gunasegaran’s body is still at the Kuala Lumpur Hospital mortuary and she had been informed that it would take about two months before the postmortem report would be made available.

Ganga said while her family wishes to remove the body of Gunasegaran as soon as possible to perform the necessary religious rituals and thereafter cremate the body, at the same time, they also want to know the truth behind Gunasegaran’s death.

“I hope there would be accountability in the death of my younger brother and there must be justice for him. Cases like this should be put to an end,” she said.

A team of seven lawyers headed by Haris Ibrahim, M. Visvanathan and Edmund Bon are also making a call to the authorities to put a stop to the practise of delaying the delivery of the post-mortem report to the next-of-kin until after the body has been buried or cremated.

“The post-mortem report must be made available to the next-ofkin as soon as possible in light of a possibility of a need to carry out a second post-mortem to determine the cause of Gunasegaran’s death,” Visvanathan said.

He also added that the witnesses in the case had also alleged that Gunasegaran was kicked in the chest area and was also beaten up with a piece of wood.

“He was also subject to further assaults by the same police officer who had assaulted him earlier, but with much greater severity, causing Gunasegaran to lose consciousness which he never regained until his death,” Haris said.

When contacted, Sentul police chief Assistant Commissioner Zakaria Pagan said police did not find any foul play in the death of Gunasegaran.

“The post-mortem report revealed Gunasegaran died of drug intoxication,” said Zakaria. He said the case has been classified as sudden death.

Gunasegaran was arrested by the district narcotics department for drug related offences, Zakaria added.

He said the deceased’s family is welcomed if they wanted to apply for an inquest.

“We have nothing to hide,” he said.

Malay Mail