I write in response to the article A story of corruption and police abuse . My heart goes out to the author. While not having gone through something as tormenting, I have had similar experiences ... thrice! Once at the age of 14, then 16 and another at 21.

At 14, during the Ramadan period, I was in my school uniform and having lunch behind Kota Raya after school. I'm a non-Muslim. While tucking in my lunch, I was approached by two police officers in full uniform. One of them suddenly slapped me while the other looked on. He accused me of humiliating Islam by having lunch in the open.

Shocked, I immediately produced my identity card proving that I had every right to eat whenever and wherever I wished. They took a look at my IC, threw it back at me and walked away. I guess I was being too presumptuous that an apology would follow... No such luck.

At 16, being the boy that I was, and typical of that age, my regular haunt was the Sungai Wang arcades. Mind you, I was not there for the gambling machines, but for the regular video games. The age requirement to enter these arcades was 18. As my luck would have it, there was a police raid.

I was rounded up by the police, paraded through Sungai Wang in handcuffs and packed into a police truck before we were herded to the Jalan Bandar police station. There I had to spend the entire night (from 3pm to 11am the following day) without food, and without being told why I was being detained.

Thinking that it was for the obvious reason of being underaged, I could not have been more wrong. I was made part of a line-up in two identification parades for crime victims to identify their perpetrators. Throughout the time there, about 40 or 50 of us had to cram into a dark room, sitting and waiting for our fate to be dished out to us. A few unlucky souls were brutally beaten for asking why they were being held.

Being 16 and extremely terrified, I held my peace. I was finally released the next day without any charges being brought against me and without any money (the RM10 I had was taken by the sergeant in charge). I had to walk home. I did not dare tell my parents what had happened to me for fear that I had to endure more punishment for "disappearing" the entire night.

At 21, I was working in a multinational IT firm, and still frequenting Sungai Wang on weekends to meet up with friends. We would often go to the stairwells to have a cigarette. Sitting in the stairwell, a man in plainclothes approached us and started yelling at us, asking what we were doing there.

Not wanting to cause trouble, we got up and apologised.. The man then pushed me and asked if I was stupid and if I had understood his question. Feeling that he did not have the right to abuse me, I pushed back and said we were leaving. He yanked out a police ID and identified himself as a policeman. He followed that with another packet of something from his pocket and said "I found this on you!".

Terrified, I then asked him what he wanted. He asked for our ICs. Having checked the ICs and finally satisfied that we were not thugs, he asked for RM50. I left the stairwell trembling and RM50 poorer.

I am now 27 - older and wiser. Having gone through such experiences, I have the wisdom to not bother with the police anymore. I love my country. But perhaps not enough for me to continue living here.