The families of two prison detainees, including a teenager, suspect that foul play could have caused their deaths despite the authorities claiming otherwise.

In their bid to unravel the 'truth', the families today turned to the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (Suhakam).

The commission agreed to hold open inquiries into the deaths of M Ayadurai, 42 and S Henry, 18, provided no other probes are carried out by the magistrate's court.

Suhakam commissioner KC Vohrah disclosed this to reporters after accepting a memorandum from Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) Youth deputy chief S Manikavasagam, who is representing the families, at the commission's headquarters in Kuala Lumpur.

According to Manikavasagam, Suhakam should hold the open inquiries because the present system to probe custodial deaths is ineffective.

"Even the Canny Ong case was quickly resolved by the courts. Yet, in G Francis Udayappan's case

, his inquest is taking 18 months. His body is already badly decomposed," he said.

Ong was abducted, murdered and her remains torched in 2003. An aircraft cabin cleaning supervisor was subsequently convicted for the grisly murder which made headlines.

Meanwhile, Francis was said to have escaped from police custody last April and there is an ongoing inquest to determine if a body found in a river later is him.

Chest injuries, suicide

According to the six-page memorandum, Ayadurai was found dead on Nov 26 at the Sungai Buloh Prison, where he was remanded in connection with a drug case.

His widow M Mageswary denies the accusation. She claimed that the police had found drugs in an adjacent bedroom which was rented out when they raided their house in Banting.

The post-mortem report revealed that Ayadurai had died of injuries inflicted on his chest.

As for S Henry, 18, the official version is that he allegedly hanged himself in his cell 24 hours after being transferred to the Simpang Renggam detention centre in Johor from the Kajang police station here.

However, his father H Sreedhran is unable to accept that his son would take his own life and it was only hours before that the teenager had told his father not to worry about him.

Furthermore, he told reporters after the incident that the cloth Henry had purportedly used in his suicide was thick and short hence unable to block his airway.

"The immediate reaction of the police was to claim that there was no foul play," read the memorandum submitted to Suhakam.

"The police does not appear to have conducted any serious investigations but were quick to clear themselves," it added.

Henry was arrested for allegedly stealing a motorcycle three months ago and was also linked to a murder case that occurred last year.