HAWA Osman and Zulkarnain Idrus did everything they could to help their son achieve his dream of joining the navy.

Three years ago, they drove Zulfarhan Osman, then 18, more than 300km to the Sungai Besi Military Air Base for selection and training for entry into Universiti Pertahanan Nasional Malaysia.

Zulkarnain, a taxi driver, and Hawa, an assistant school administrator, were happy and proud when their eldest son was accepted. In their mind’s eye, they could already see him in the white uniform of the naval force. 

What they could not foresee was that he would be accused of stealing a laptop and tortured to death a year short of his graduation as a commissioned officer.  

Zulfarhan died on June 1, after being tortured with a steam iron, a belt and a clothes hangar. Police have detained 36 people in connection with his death, which has been classified as murder.

Zulkarnain, 53, was moved beyond grief at the sight of his son’s battered body in the morgue.

“My son was tortured. They didn’t even spare his private parts. He was scalded all over from the neck down,” said the father at their family home in Bandar Uda Utama in Johor, yesterday.

Zulkarnain said his son was marked with second and third degree burns.

“The doctor told me the injuries were inflicted by a steam iron, and that the burns could have led to dehydration and major organ failure, which could have been the cause of death,

The father is seeking answers for the murder of his son, but all he has found are more questions.

Zulkarnain said he and his wife have been told that Zulrfarhan had been accused of stealing a laptop.

They were told that the person who did this to his son had sought a bomoh’s help to locate the thief who stole his laptop.

“I was told that the bomoh gave my son’s name to the perpetrator who decided to take matters into his own hands. I want to know if that is true,” said Zulkairnain.

But what he really wants to know is, why didn’t the doctor who had treated his son twice for his injuries go to the police?

Zulfarhan, a third-year Electrical Engineering degree student, is believed to have been tortured for a week before he succumbed to his injuries.

His mother Hawa, 54, said the ambulance had picked up her son from a vacant house in Sepang the night he died. He had been clad in only a sarong.

“The doctor told me that. I asked, who placed him there? The doctor told me to refer to the police as that was under police investigation,” said Hawa.

Zulrfarhan, the eldest of four children aged 15 to 21, had boarded in the hostel at the Sungai Besi Military Airbase. How he ended up in Sepang is a mystery.

Hawa last spoke to him a few days before his death. She said in the telephone call, Zulfarhan had sounded different.

“I could tell he was not well but he kept saying he was fine. So I told him to take care of himsel.

She was devastated, just days later, by the news of his death. Like Zulkairnan, she is seeking answers for the cruel murder of her son she said was “always helpful and independent”. 

She asked Zulfarhan’s friends why they did not report her son’s persecution to the university authorities. They said it was because they were afraid that they, too, would be similarly punished if they did.

But Hawa and Zulkarnain believe that the truth will prevail and justice will be served. If necessary, they will engage a lawyer to make sure of that.

“I want his name cleared. He was accused of stealing a laptop which he denied doing. They tortured him to a pulp. My son’s life is priceless, but apparently a laptop was worth more than his life,” she said. – June 4, 2017.