THE inquest suggested by Inspector-General of Police Abdul Hamid Bador into the death of three men killed by police in a shoot-out in Gombak, Selangor, last week is a waste of time, said lawyer P. Uthayakumar.

Uthayakumar, who represents the families of the killed men, said he was not in favour of an inquest as it was rare for policemen to be prosecuted as a result of one.

“Furthermore, 98% of the time, the coroner will give an open verdict.

“The coroner cannot decide conclusively because there are cover-ups. That is why it (would be) a waste of time,” Uthayakumar told The Malaysian Insight.

Hamid had said the police would seek an inquest into the shooting of the three men following contradictory statements from various parties over the incident last week.

He had said the inquest should be carried out quickly as all sorts of statements and accusations had been bandied around.

Hamid, however, expressed confidence that his men had acted accordingly, and that standard operating procedures (SOP) for discharging firearms were strictly adhered to.  

The three men shot dead were Janarthanan Vijayaratnam, a Sri Lankan with permanent residency (PR) in the UK; his brother-in-law, Thavaselvan Govindasamy; and, Maghendran Santhirasegaran, a friend.

The family of the victims alleged that Janarthanan’s wife, Moganambal Govindasamy, was also in the car but is now missing. Police had earlier said there was no trace of a woman having been in the car with the suspects.

Uthayakumar added that many police officers had gotten away with murder due to the attorney-general’s apprehension in prosecuting such cases.

“If a report is lodged, the police must immediately arrest the officers and conduct their investigations.

“Then, the attorney-general must prosecute them and only then will all this nonsense stop.”

He hoped that the new Pakatan Harapan government will take action against the officers if they are found guilty of wrongdoing.

“These are the changes we are expecting from this new government.”

The family of the victim had said that Janarthanan, his wife and their three children, arrived in Kuala Lumpur on August 27 for a visit, their first trip here in six years.

Janarthanan’s family provided flight tickets and a luggage tag under the deceased’s name as proof that he had entered the country on August 27.

In doing so, they were refuting a police statement that there was no record of Janarthanan having entered the country.

Police had also said Janarthanan was allegedly involved in a house break-in in Sentul, Kuala Lumpur, in 2016, which his family denied, saying he had been in the UK at that time.

Another lawyer representing the families, M. Manoharan, had told a press conference yesterday that the police should make public the post-mortem results and dash cam recordings from the police car when the shoot-out took place on September 14.

Manoharan had also urged Hamid and Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad to put an end to incidents of police “playing God” and shooting suspected criminals.

Meanwhile, there has been no development into the disappearance of Moganambal, which police have classified as a missing person’s case. – September 21, 2019.