The chairperson of anti-crime watchdog MyWatch has claimed that he was assaulted last week at a hotel in Kuala Lumpur, following months of threats on his life for allegedly exposing crime rings and also highlighting cases of police brutality.

R Sri Sanjeevan said that four men on motorbikes, who allegedly carried firearms, had followed him into the car park of a hotel in Kuala Lumpur last Thursday, and had hit him on the back with metal knuckles.

However, some construction workers nearby intervened and the assailants fled.

“Thank God the construction workers arrived, otherwise I might not be here today,” he said after a forum on smooth and peaceful transition of power, which he helped organise, in Kuala Lumpur yesterday.

He said that CCTV footage later retrieved from the hotel showed that the men had followed him all the way from outside the hotel into the carpark, and they had clearly planned to assault him.

NONE Sanjeevan ( right ), along with former inspector-general of police Musa Hassan, had lodged a report at the Brickfields police station the very same day, but he said the police had not taken any action although the CCTV footage clearly showed the faces of his assailants, who were not masked.

“It was a well-planned but a poorly-executed attack,” he said.

Sanjeevan said he had been receiving threats for a few months now, including a call allegedly from a police officer of the Jempol police station in Negri Sembilan two months ago, where the officer allegedly told him that some gangs are ready to “kill” him.

“I have been receiving threats for so long, but I never took them seriously. This is the first time they have actually attacked me,” he said.

He delivered a scathing attack on current IGP Ismail Omar for being a “yes man” and a “ceremonial IGP”.

“This is the problem when you have a very weak IGP at the helm,” he said, adding that an investigation that was supposed to be launched about a death threat allegedly by a police officer was then wrapped up without making any progress.

Musa, who accompanied Sanjeevan, said that the police need to start getting tough on cases like these, otherwise criminals will “lose their fear” of the force.