Indian group wants public inquiry into fatal shooting

Malaysian Indian Youth Development Foundation (MIYDF) has called for a public inquiry to provide a satisfactory explanation for the fatal shooting of six people in Kulim, Kedah early this week.

Its chairperson SA Vigneswaran said in a statement today that a public inquiry should be held as the “public want to know why the suspects were not captured alive”.

“They must also provide details of their actions, especially when the lives of six people were abruptly ended and their families are crying for an explanation,” he said.

If the police refuse to provide an explanation, Vigneswaran added, it would seem as if they had carried out a ‘shoot-to-kill’ order and “many irresponsible parties will capitalise this issue into a racial pigeonhole to discredit the police as having hidden agenda”.

“It is best that the police clear the air, once and for all. To not do so is to widen the chasm between the police force and the community, and really, who needs that right now,” he said.

According to Vigneswaran, who is also a legal consultant for the foundation’s human rights committee, the law must always be maintained by the police but when the officers face potentially life-or-death situations, it requires an instantaneous decision: “to shoot or not to shoot”.

“But the question asked is why in all instances of police shootings, only after the tragedy did police reveal that the dead suspects had committed a series of criminal acts?,” he said.

Last Tuesday, the police shot dead six suspected criminals and detained four women in a shoot-out at a house in Kampung Kemunting, Karangan, in Kulim after a team of eight policemen, acting on a tip-off, raided a house which was believed to be used as a center for illegal gold smelting.

The six shot dead, according to Federal CID director Bakri Zinin, were the trigger-happy gang which had been terrorising jewellery store owners in Selangor, Penang, Perak and Kedah over the past two years.

This has caused a stir after many public figures came out and lashed out against the police for being incompetent in tackling the matter.

Why no photofit?

Vigneswaran also questioned as to why the public or the press were never given a list of wanted persons or photofits of the suspects for them to be released or published if the police knew them to be trigger happy jewellery store robbers alleged to be on the prowl for two years.

“If the photofits had been released, then the families and the public would have been aware of their criminal activities and an eventual surrender of suspects could have been achieved,” he said.

Vigneswaran also put the police to task for “hurryingly storming” into the building which resulted in the fatal shootings.

“Was there an emergency need to enter the building?” he asked.

Although the police ruled the shooting as justified under self-defence, a full disclosure of whether the officers could have exhausted other options is crucial, he said.

“Evidence from the police of attempts to confine the suspects to the building, or some sort of negotiation or calling for back up or had they resorted to tear-gas will reveal that the fatal shooting was exercised as the last resort,” said Vigneswaran.