POLICE today dismissed allegations that there was a woman in the car with the three men who were killed in a shootout with police near Rawang in Selangor last Saturday.

Selangor police chief Noor Azam Jamaludin said if there is a report from the family on the missing woman, they would classify the case as a missing person’s report and look for her.

“I want to stress that the woman was not with the three men who were killed in the shootout,” Noor Azam told The Malaysian Insight.

“Furthermore, we did not know that one of the men killed was a Sri Lankan who was a permanent resident in the United Kingdom.”

The shooting of the three men, said to be involved in a spate of house break-ins, has caused an uproar among social activists, who alleged that this was another case of police high-handedness.

The missing woman has been identified as 35-year-old Moganambal Govindasamy. Her husband, Janarthan Vijayaratnam, Moganambal’s brother Thavaselvan and a friend, Maghendran Santhirasegaran, were killed in the shootout on Saturday night.

Moganambal’s family had said she and her husband returned to Malaysia for a visit late last month after staying in the UK for six years.

The family lawyer, Sivahnanthan Ragava, told The Malaysian Insight that it was ridiculous for police to allege that Moganambal and her husband were criminals wanted by the police as they had just come down for a visit after living abroad for six years. The couple have three children.

The lawyer also said that following the incident, Moganambal has gone missing.

Noor Azam today defended his men, saying they returned fire after the suspects began shooting at the police team.

“They opened fire first, my men returned fire to defend themselves,” he said.

Noor Azam further denied that police made up a false story to cover their tracks, adding they had done nothing wrong in the operation.

Moganambal’s family took their complaint to the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (Suhakam) this afternoon, where commissioner Jerald Joseph said there are many unanswered questions.

Jerald said Suhakam will try to ascertain if police had followed standard operating procedures (SOP) when discharging their firearms.

“If it was true that the three of them were involved in a spate of break-ins, why were they not arrested? Did police fire any warning shots before shooting them?

“We will also investigate an allegation by a family member that a police sergeant had told the family that Moganambal was in their custody,” added Jerald. – September 17, 2019.