The Shah Alam High Court has granted the request by the family of S Balamurugan, who died in police custody last week, to have a second post-mortem.

Judge Azman Husin allowed the request by Balamurugan's younger brother S Balraj for the second post-mortem to be conducted at the Kuala Lumpur Hospital (HKL).

There was no objection from DPP Fakhizaa Abu Bakar on the application.

The family's lawyer N Surendran said the legal team would be extracting the order first before serving it on Tengku Ampuan Rahimah Hospital for Balamurugan’s remains to be released.

“(We will) try to get the body over to HKL as soon as possible in order to complete the procedure,” he told reporters later.

Surendran expressed hope for the post-mortem to be conducted as soon as possible.

“Hopefully by today or latest by tomorrow. So we are going to go and serve the order and get Klang hospital (Tengku Ampuan Rahimah Hospital) to transfer the body to HKL as soon as possible without any undue delay,” he said.

Balamurugan, 44, was arrested on Feb 6 when he was found in the same car with two other men, one of whom was wanted by the police. He passed away in police custody the following day.

He was taken to court on the day of his passing, where he vomited blood and the magistrate asked the police to take him to the hospital, then have him released.

However, the police did not send him to the hospital and he subsequently passed away later that day.

The findings of a post-mortem on the victim suggested he died of heart failure, but the family was not satisfied with the findings.

Meanwhile, Surendran said the family had been dissatisfied from the very beginning with the outcome of the first post-mortem due to the various marks on Balamurugan’s body, among others.

“In those circumstances naturally the family wants certainty about the cause of death,” said the PKR parliamentarian.

DAP lawmaker Charles Santiago on the other hand confirmed that police have scheduled a meeting between them and inspector-general of police Khalid Abu Bakar next week.

This, following a memorandum Balamurugan’s family sent to the Bukit Aman police headquarters yesterday.

“Ten of us will be representing to talk to the IGP about the death in custody issue,” he said.