The Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (Suhakam) today denied that race was a determining factor in the cases that the watchdog chooses to investigate.

Commissioner Prof Hamdan Mohd Adnan - who heads the investigations and complaints committee - said this in response to an accusation that the committee favoured Malay Malaysians.

He noted that contrary to the accusation, most of the cases of custodial deaths looked into by the commission involved Indian Malaysians.

"It is unfair to say that Suhakam does not look at colour, race or religion. We look at the incident," he said when contacted.

He was asked to respond to the Police Watch and Human Rights Committee (PWHRC) which accused the commission of discriminating against the constitutional right to legal protection of Saravanan Meyalagam who died in police custody .

PWHRC's legal advisor P Uthayakumar alleged that though it had written to the authorities about Saravanan who had died a day before Ilias Othman - who also died in custody - Suhakam announced on April 10 that it would only look into the latter's case.

He said PWHRC had also "not forgiven nor forgotten" the absence of a Suhakam inquiry into the 2001 'Kampung Medan tragedy'. The three-day clashes claimed six lives and left scores injured.

Terrible accusation

Meanwhile, Hamdan said it was terrible to accuse Suhakam of such bias, seeing how the commission was actively involved in looking into as many cases as it was aware of throughout the country.

Hamdan said he had just returned from Menggatal, Sabah to investigate an incident at an immigration detention centre where inmates had reportedly rioted against prolonged detention.

"Even cases of human rights abuse involving illegal immigrants we investigate, what more cases involving our own citizens?" he added.

He said if any case had been overlooked, this only meant that the report had failed to reach his committee.

"If PWHRC knows of cases (that we are unaware of) then they must come and see me or one of the commissioners," he added.