The Petaling Selatan clashes which began on March 9 were popularly reported to have started from two incidents - one in Kampung Semarak, Taman Medan involving a wedding and a funeral and another in Taman Desaria flats involving the smashing of a windscreen by a catapult.

However, the persons involved in the incidents today clarified that they had nothing to do with starting the communal clashes.

M Suriya of Kampung Semarak in Taman Medan said that his brother-in-law had passed away due to a heart attack on Saturday, March 3 and the cremation was to take place on Sunday afternoon.

Family and relatives, from as far as Johor Bahru, had gathered at the funeral house and most of them were elderly men and women.

"A thousand metres away, another house - a Malay family - was preparing for a wedding which was due to take place on Sunday and a tent was erected on the road, with enough space for a Kancil car to pass through.

"Not known to us, at about 4 am on Sunday morning, an Indian youth - not a guest of ours - had got into a fight at the wedding house after he accidentally knocked into some chairs and tables there.

"The youth fled from the scene and ran towards our house and disappeared behind - we do not know where to. Then we heard a group of people heading towards our house and we also heard motorcycles going up in flames. A car's windscreen was also smashed," said Suriya, showing photographs of the damaged vehicles taken soon after the incident.

CPO visits

Suriya said the group came to their house, demanding for the youth. When the people at the funeral house told them that they did not know the youth and that he had fled, the other group apologised and went away.

"By then, we had called the police and made a report. At about 7am, the Selangor chief police officer Nik Ismail Nik Yusuf himself came to our house and told us that he will provide us with police escort to the crematorium in Kampung Tunku. He also gave us his condolences and at about 2pm, the hearse left the house for the crematorium.

"We had outriders, a police special branch van and a police patrol car escorting us all the way to the crematorium and back," said Suriya, who kept saying he was overwhelmed by the police escort provided for his late brother-in-law's hearse.

"It was all over after that. It was like a drama. We did not start the clashes. This is nothing racial. That was what exactly happened and nothing more," said Suriya, who hopes that the media will expose the real story.

Widow of the deceased, Y Kalaivany, who is now staying at her sister's place, said she did not know that everybody was attributing the clashes to the wedding-funeral incident until people and colleagues started telling her.

"I have stayed there for 20 years and I have never seen parang-wielding people in the area. There are small fights elsewhere but not in the area I stay. We all stay in the same area and on that Saturday morning itself, I had passed right under the tent and had been greeted by the wedding house people. I do not know them well, but we know each other's faces," said Kalaivany, who is still in mourning for her husband.

"We have called a press conference only now as we wanted to finish the 14th day prayers first. We feel it is our duty to tell the public the real story. It was not racial and this is the truth," said Suriya, who pleaded with the media to report the truth.

Placed in lock-up

Meanwhile, in the other incident at the Desaria flats also in Taman Medan, which was also said to have sparked off the clashes, the man involved said he does not know how the incident was misconstrued as racial.

Van driver Jantan Amat said he had just come back from work at about 2pm and parked his van outside his flat. An Indian boy who was using a slingshot against birds, accidentally stoned the windscreen of the van, smashing it. "I then told the boy off," he said.

"Later, at about 9pm, the van owner and another driver - both Indians - came over. We then went to see the boy upstairs. At the same time, the other driver had told off two other teenage Indian boys whom I think were just nosing around. The driver chased the boys and one of the boys started hitting the driver while another went to call his father and other people," said Jantan..

Jantan's next door neighbour, the van owner's sister, said that 15 to 20 people came over with parangs and sticks to where the van owner and Jantan were and there was an argument.

"My son nearly got slashed in the process. As I had then just come back from the surau , the people there must have thought that I was the one attacked but that was explained and sorted out," said Jantan.

Jantan said that he and the van owner then went to the Petaling Jaya police station to file a report on the smashed windscreen. He did not want to file a report on the injured driver as he did not want to 'exaggerate' it further, he said.

"At the police station, the van owner filed a police report at 1am but both of us were arrested at 5.30am that morning and placed in the lock-up. They said it was for investigation purposes. We were both remanded for six days, after which we were released with no charges brought against us," said Jantan.

Confused

Jantan said that so far, no one from the police had come to investigate the smashed windscreen incident.

"There was no racial fight or clash as reported. It was an exaggerated story that went around. It just so happened people involved were of different races. The incident I was involved in had nothing to do with racial tension or anything of the sort. It was just a smashed windscreen incident," said Jantan.

Jantan said that throughout his six-day remand in the lock-up, he saw people being brought in and they told him they were arrested for being involved in Taman Medan clashes which started from an incident attributed to him.

"I was so confused as I could not believe what I was hearing from the people while I was in the lock-up," said Jantan.