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.
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
