Attorney-General Abdul Gani Patail should call for inquests into the deaths of six persons who were shot dead by the police since the beginning of this year, said Parti Reformasi Insan Malaysia (Prim) today.

P ro tem deputy secretary-general RN Rajah said this in a letter to Abdul Gani to highlight the latest incident where a suspected criminal S Sunder was shot dead by the police in Bukit Mertajam, Penang last month.

The report o­n the shooting originally appeared in the English tabloid Malay Mail o­n April 17.

Rajah said the fatal shooting of suspects who were not proven guilty in court seemed to be "a trend o­n a drastic increase lately".

He said the explanation given by the police regarding these deaths was not convincing.

"In 99 percent of the cases, the police's version of a shooting incident was always the same suspects would behave suspiciously, the police give them a chase, suspects shoot at the police, police fire back and all suspects die, except a few who manage to escape sometimes.

"The dead suspects are then found with firearms and yet no police officer would be injured," said the chairperson of Prim's police watch committee in the letter, a copy of which was made available to malaysiakini.

Faster alternative?

He questioned why other means such as the use of plastic bullets and tranquiliser were not employed in capturing suspects alive.

He said the facts regarding a shooting incident are "100 percent controlled" by the police and there is no mechanism to verify them.

"Such shooting incidents leave behind widows, orphans and parents who have to endure the pain of losing their child," he said.

He also said many families of the victims believe that the police had resorted to shooting to solve criminal cases in a fast way.

He added Prim was against all forms of crimes allegedly committed by the suspects but could not agree with the police mishandling of those cases.

"The suspects should be caught alive and charged in court. The court would then decide whether a suspect is guilty or not, it is not the authority of the police to sentence a person," he said.

He said open and fair inquests into the six deaths which resulted from police shooting over the past five months are thus important to clear the doubts and questions in the mind of Malaysians.

The six deaths are two unnamed Indonesians who were shot dead in January, three Indian Malaysians N Selvaraj, A Mariadas and M Ravi in March, and S Sunder last month.

Prim has long expressed concern over police brutality.

In 2000, then deputy home minister Abdul Kadir Sheikh Fadzir had revealed that a total of 635 Malaysians were shot dead in police operations between 1989 and 1999.