Widows seek urgent help from minister a second time

comments     Wong Joon Ian     Published     Updated

Three widows whose husbands were shot dead by the police earlier this year have appealed to National Unity and Social Development Minister Dr Siti Zaharah Sulaiman a second time to provide them with emergency funds amounting to RM60,000.

The three letters, dated Nov 20 and signed by their lawyer, P Uthayakumar, who is also the pro tem secretary of Parti Reformasi Insan Malaysia, demanded RM20,000 in emergency funds and an additional RM1,000 per month for each woman.

Two women, Vasanti Perumal and Jeyanthi Sinniah, are pregnant while the third, Saraswathy Kannan, is a mother of four young children aged three to eleven. They wrote to the minister via Uthayakumar in September and October with an identical appeal for help, without any response from the minister.

The three also met with the ministry parliamentary secretary S Veerasingam in Dewan Rakyat when handing him a memo on police shootings prepared by Prim on Nov 1.

At the meeting, witnessed by Seputeh MP Teresa Kok, Veerasingam took down their names, addresses and phone numbers and promised to provide "welfare help for them and their children so that they can go to school".

Despite that, the victims have yet to receive any money from the ministry to this day, according to the letters.

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