COMMENT In late January, the Kuala Lumpur High Court heard the civil suit brought against the government by RS Ganga Gowry, sister of the late R Gunasegaran who died in police custody. I had the opportunity to observe the entire proceedings.

By around the same time, there had been a spate of disturbing deaths. One victim was beaten to death in police handcuffs, another found badly bruised in a police lock-up, and one more - a mother of two - died after being shot at 25 times by the police.

One can only hope that justice for those victims will not take as long as justice for Gunasegaran.

azlan Gunasegaran and three others, S Ravi, MS Suresh and K Selvachanthiran (Selvach), were arrested on July 16, 2008 - the day that Teoh Beng Hock died - as part of a drug operation by the police.

Gunasegaran tried to run, but was apprehended.

Ravi, Suresh and Selvach all testified at the inquest in 2010 that they saw police corporal Mohd Faizal Mat Taib beat Gunasegaran brutally both at the scene of the arrest and at the police station when he was unable to give a urine sample.

The inquest however delivered an open verdict , which meant that. officially speaking, the cause of Gunasegaran’s death was ‘unknown’.

NONE The very night that open verdict was delivered, a group of police personnel barged into Selvach’s house, beat him in front of his wife and children (right) , and then arrested him. He was detained without trial for two years, and only released last December.

In many ways, as described towards the end of the article, his ordeal continues, and this is written in large part to see if there are Malaysians who can help Selvach.

In the civil suit, both Ravi and Selvach repeated their testimony, completely consistent with the one they had given at the inquest.

The seven or so police personnel implicated in the suit as part of the events of that day were present throughout the proceedings, seated right next to observers like me. The experience was chilling.

NONE Before the court ran out of time for this session, two of those personnel had testified and been cross-examined by human rights lawyer M Visvanathan (right) .

Said cross-examinations were fierce, with Visva tearing through their testimony, revealing a plethora of contradictions with both documentary evidence and within their own testimony.

The police were visibly shaken. One was observed to have urinated slightly in his pants while on the stand (an irony, as Gunasegaran was allegedly beaten with a rubber hose by that same officer for failing to do exactly that).

Another - the ranking officer in the operation that day - gave his entire, morose testimony speaking slowly looking slightly downwards. You could almost imagine him being literally weighed down by a guilty conscience, and struggling with untruths.

The whole affair was a painful cross between disturbing, pitiful and pathetic.

Ravi was still serving a prison sentence and thus was handcuffed to a prison officer the entire time he was at court.

He reported that while waiting in the witness room, a police officer came up to him and said: “If you make life difficult for us here, we will make life difficult for you when you get out.”

D azlan espite Visva’s protests, neither the judge nor the federal counsel seemed to think this was a big affair.

Even after these threats and being surrounded at all times by people in uniforms, Ravi testifed as truthfully as he could, admitting fully that he was a drug addict and recounting exactly what he saw that day.

Selvach did the same, despite his extremely traumatic arrest and two year detention.

I think no one could have possibly held it against him if Selvach decided not to testify, after all that he had been through. Yet, there he came back and stood up for the truth - displaying more courage than most of us are likely to see in a lifetime.

‘God is taking care of it’

Gunasegaran is dead and gone. The civil proceedings continue in mid-April, and will hopefully bring a fraction of justice for his family.

NONE Ganga Gowry (right) related to us an incident she observed.

Apparently, back in 2008, when Gunasegaran was being beaten half to death, Selvach complained in Tamil to the ranking officer, imploring him to help Gunasegaran. The officer’s alleged reply was “This one, God will take care of it.”

Two and a half years later, the day the soft-spoken Selvach finished giving his testimony, Ganga said she saw him go up to that same officer and say to him, “Now God is taking care of it.”

It remains to be seen who will help take care of Selvach however.

Selvach came home to his family in Setapak to find himself deep in debt for rent and utility bills, and is now in dire need of employment.

Along with Visva and a friend, we visited his home last month, and have gathered some private funding to help settle these bills, but the question of a job remains. His youngest son had been unable to go to school due to these constraints.

NONE Having survived being beaten, persecuted and detained without trial for two long years away with his family, Selvach still came back to stand up and do his part in the pursuit of justice.

He is now looking for an honest living; he is illiterate but likely to be able to perform any basic labour. If anyone can help him and his family become self-sufficient again, it would undoubtedly make all the difference in the world for him and his family.

We continue to pursue justice for the dead, even though we will never get them back. In the meantime as well, let’s hope we can do what we can for the living.

It is a rare opportunity to do our part for those who lost everything, and if nothing else than to help prevent future abuses, dared to risk losing it all again.

NATHANIEL TAN is a writer. Selvach was once a lorry driver. He has a valid class D licence. Anyone who might be able to help him gain employment of any kind is warmly invited to contact nat@renyi.net