death in detention: suresh kunasekaran
Yet another death in detention under extremely mysterious circumstances. Not sure, but I think the NST first broke the story, and there were follow-ups today there and in the Star as well about how the IGP is demanding a detailed report. Hopefully, we’ll all get one and hopefully, this isn’t just bluster and filler from Tan Sri Musa.
Sorry for the following long quote, but the original NST article will disappear from the Internet soon enough.
Suresh Kunasekaran / K. Suresh (a 26 yr old despatch worker with a battery company) was found in a cell meant for women, hanging from the window with a saree tied around the neck about 2pm (on Friday, Oct 27th, 2006)
“No one could tell us exactly what happened. Where did the saree come from? Why was he in the women’s cell? Why was the closed-circuit television camera not working?” his mother Liew Kiew asked.
The 47-year-old general worker at a plastics factory in Sungai Choh, said her neighbours told her he was confronted by two police officers on motorcycles at a workshop near his Taman Teratai home in Sungai Choh on Friday morning.
About 11.30am, he was picked up by a patrol car and taken to the Bukit Sentosa police station.
About midnight, says Liew Kiew, she was woken up by a policeman who told her Suresh had died in police custody.
She woke up her two daughters and her husband, Kunasekaran Rengaya, 47, and they went straight to the police station.
“They told us that he was found dead in his cell and that they were investigating whether he had committed suicide. They told us to come back at 8am.
“We later found out from someone else that he was alone in a cell meant for women, and that he was hanged from the cell window with a saree,” she said.
Could the circumstances be more bizarre? :( What on earth happened??
Today’s NST reports that Suhakam apparently plans to have an inquest. Commissioner Datuk N. Siva Subramaniam echoes Mrs. Liew Kiew’s frustrations:
Siva said: ” I want the police to answer several questions.
“How did the saree get into the lock-up? Assuming that the deceased managed to bring the saree into the lock-up, what were the police doing? Aren’t they supposed to monitor detainees? Secondly, what could have pushed the deceased to commit suicide only a few hours after being detained?
“Thirdly, why the delay in informing the family of his death?”
Questions upon questions. But I bet you somebody out there knows the answers.
It seems that there has been a spate of deaths in detention in the last few months, all under very suspicious circumstances.
Police Watch Malaysia appears to have done some good work documenting many of these cases. This group seems to concentrate a bit on problems within the Indian community.
I try to be well aware of the pitfalls of seeing the ethnicity angle in every problem, but it is also worth pointing out that Indians make up a hugely disproportionate percentage of detention under the Emergency (Public Order and Prevention of Crime) Ordinance 1969, a much less famous but much more often used cousin to the ISA. Please see the link for more info.
I’ll try to keep an eye out for developments on this case.
hey so is this blog public yet?
yes :)
[...] I’m glad the charge has been levelled; the victims were an engineer and a project manager. I’m just hoping that’s not the only reason this case made it to the courts whereas those of M Vijaya and K Suresh remain unresolved :( [...]