The day was bright and the sky was clear. I was driving my mother’s 10-year-old black Kembara to meet Imran Mustafa at Masjid Putra Nilai from home. As I entered Persiaran Negeri (near the Giamt Supermarket, Nilai) from a big roundabout coming from Cempaka, a white four-wheel- drive Toyota Hilux passed me from my right with a guy waving his hand indicating that I should pull my car to the side.
My judgment at that point in time was to abide by their request since I have nothing to hide. I responded accordingly, arranged my gear into parking mode and double-checked that the door was locked.
Three Malay men came down from the vehicle and approached my car. All of them wore round-neck pasar-malam-like T-shirts without any tags around their neck (I was expecting that from any government or private institution’s officials).
One of them came to the driver’s side, another one went to the left and one man remained in between his Toyota and my Kembara. I lowered the door window screen and the man close to the driver’s side, whilst holding a black walkie-talkie and without any proper introduction, said,
‘Kereta ni dah 12 bulan tak bayar, encik.’
‘Eh, kenapa pulak? Mak ayah saya dah settle bayaran lama dah", I replied.
‘Ni kereta JF_ xxxx kan? Betul, belum bayar, 12 bulan, Bank Islam.’
Despite my reiteration that the car’s loan installment had been fully paid and the financing of the car is not with Bank Islam, they refused to accept my arguments as well as my request for them to provide any formal identification. The three men, however, insisted that they are official agents of Bank Islam.
No official tag
No business card
No formal documentation
Nothing!
‘Kami dapat tahu tentang maklumat encik dari laptop dalam kereta.’
I thought they were trying to impress me with whatever they have on their laptop, but it turned out that they had fooled themselves. They showed a simple software that has a table with my Kembara’s registration number and ‘Bank Islam’ next to it. There were no other details (name of person registered to the car, house address etc).
There wasn’t even an Internet dongle, for God’s sake! The only way that one person could have such details, I think, was to have all vehicle registration numbers keyed into his computer, which is very unlikely (judging from his way of explaining things to me).
I argued that I won’t do anything by the roadside and will inform my parents that they should communicate directly with the bank involved, if and only if there was such problem. Thus, I requested for their business cards, name and telephone numbers. As expected, they failed to provide any.
The men were walking to and from their Toyota Hilux whilst acting as if someone is communicating with them via their handphones and the unimpressive walkie-talkie.
‘Encik janganlah cakap kasar macam kami ni nak mencuri kereta encik.’
‘Saya tak kata kamu nak curi kereta saya.’
There were a few exchanges of words in which I noticed that their tone was at a lower pitch suggesting that I may have disappointed them in whatever their cause was.
"Tak apa lah, kami lepaskan encik kali ini. Encik check lah dengan pihak bank. Nasib baiklah encik ni Melayu, kalau India dah lama saya tengking aje"
How racist was that? I quickly took a pen and paper, wrote their car model registration number.
Toyota Hilux (white)
QAK 197
I was a few minutes late from my meeting. Imran and I had a laugh over this incident. I then lodged a police report at Niilai police station at 5pm. The police officer who attended to my case was warm, helpful and efficient, and I thanked her for her kind assistance that afternoon.
My family and I went for Solat Isya’ and Solat Tarawikh at the local mosque later that night.
Selamat beramal di bulan Ramadhan!
Ramadhan mubaarak!
