Court rules police abused power in 2019 Rawang fatal shooting incident
Coroner Rasyihah Ghazali said there was a criminal element in the case and that there was an abuse of power by the authorities in the fatal shooting of G Thavaselvan, 31, S Mahendran, 23, and Sri Lankan national J Vijayaratnam, 40...
The police were not shooting in self-defence in an incident where three men were gunned down in Rawang, Selangor three years ago, ruled the Shah Alam Coroner’s Court.
Coroner Rasyihah Ghazali said there was a criminal element in the case and that there was an abuse of power by the authorities in the fatal shooting of G Thavaselvan, 31, S Mahendran, 23, and Sri Lankan national J Vijayaratnam, 40.
Lawyer M Visvanathan, who acted for the family of the deceased, confirmed the verdict in the inquest delivered late afternoon yesterday.
“The coroner found the police to have abused their powers.
“She added that there was a criminal element in the case. The shooting was not in self-defence,” the lawyer said when contacted.
The inquest was conducted to delve into the circumstances surrounding the incident at Jalan Batu Arang which saw three men gunned down by a police team at about 5am on Sept 14, 2019.
Police’s version disputed
Police claimed the men were suspected to be members of a house break-in gang and that they were killed allegedly during a shootout following a high-speed chase.
Vijayaratnam, who resided in the UK and was the brother-in-law of Thavaselvan, was in Malaysia together with his wife and their three children for a visit. Mahendran, meanwhile, was Thavaselvan's friend.
However, the family members of Thavaselvan and Vijayaratnam disputed the police's version of the incident and claimed possible foul play.
They claimed that the three men, together with Vijayaratnam’s wife G Moganambal, had gone out for dinner on that fateful night in a Perodua Alza and not a Volkswagen Polo as claimed by the police when they were shot.
The families also called for the police to investigate and reveal what had happened to Moganambal, whom they said had gone missing since.
‘Police testimony clashes with scientific proof’
Meanwhile, when contacted, the families’ co-counsel V Sanjay Nathan said the coroner had ruled that there was a material difference between the police’s testimony and scientific evidence tendered in court.
The lawyer explained that this could be seen by the authorities’ contention that they shot the three men at an upward angle and at a higher position than the police team.
He said the coroner could not accept the police’s version of the events as the post mortem report and forensic expert testimony showed the bullets entered and exited the three men’s bodies at a downward angle.
Sanjay said the court also accepted their submissions that scientific evidence showed two of the deceased were actually shot when they were behind the car’s open door.
The lawyer said this contradicted the police’s testimony that the two men were shot while they were away from the car.
“The police testified at length, claiming that it was a high-speed car chase and that right before the shooting, the car driven by the three men had ‘terbabas’ (skidded) and crashed.
“But the evidence in court did not reflect this ‘keadaan cemas’ (apprehensive situation).
“Pictures (tendered in court) actually showed that the car did not sustain visible damage as would be expected of a ‘terbabas’ car,” Sanjay said.
Families to sue police over 2019 Rawang fatal shooting incident
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