The retired sub-inspector, according to his ex-colleagues and crime reporters, was a masterclass in deduction and detection.

That would explain the more than 100 commendations and state honours he received during his 37 years with the Negeri Sembilan and Selangor criminal investigation departments (CID).

Some say his success in law enforcement could rival the performance of an entire police department. That makes Sundram, an original “mata gelap” (detective), a marvel.

Today, at the age of 77, the tough-as-nails Sundram is chairman of the SS15/2 and SS15/3, Subang Jaya, Rukun Tetangga (RT) which he set up in 2013 following rampant cases of snatch thefts.

“The civilian volunteer group that I helped form to patrol the neighbourhoods is an extension of my commitment to keep people safe,” said Sundram at his second home, the RT base opposite his house.

In his detective days, the man who is in thrall over classic cars and bikes, had posed as a lorry driver, a loafer and a samsu drinker when going undercover. He survived two attempts on his life.

Sundram, who served the force from 1962 to 1999, was a key investigator in several sensational cases such as the murder of beauty queen Jean Perera-Sinnappa (1979); the encounters with the notorious killers Bentong Kali (1993) and Sani and Isa (1984); and several high-profile kidnappings.

Sundram said of the gripping cases he handled and the hours he put in: “It was worth all of those long hours. You really feel you’ve made a difference.”

Sundram would not have been a policeman if his father had had his way. To his old man’s dismay, he dropped out of school as a fourth former at the Anglo-Chinese School in Malacca and joined the police force with his mother’s blessings.

In 1962, at the age of 18, he completed his training at the Police Depot in Jalan Gurney, Kuala Lumpur, and was posted to Seremban as a traffic constable.

After two days of traffic duty, the burly Sundram was pulled out to train in the evenings as the goalkeeper for the police hockey squad and as scrum half for the rugby team.

His athleticism soon caught the eye of CID officers who drew him into a team investigating an extortion case in Mantin. It was as a traffic cop, Sundram said, that he made his first arrest. After a lengthy chase in the jungle, he caught one of the two men who had extorted $50,000 from a rubber dealer.

He was absorbed into the anti-vice, gambling and secret societies unit and shone as a rookie. A year later, he was confirmed as detective constable after an eight-month training stint in Singapore.

In Seremban, Sundram kept hitting the streets to solve crimes others wouldn’t, even when it put him in danger.

He said his biggest case in the 70s was the capture of “Mat Commando”, then Negeri Sembilan’s most wanted man who stole two sub-machine guns and 25 rounds of ammunition from the Sikamat military camp.

After 13 years in Seremban, Sundram was transferred to the Petaling Jaya police headquarters in 1977.

His first case here came one day before he reported for duty. Sundram said he was getting a haircut in Petaling Jaya when the barber told him he wanted to cease business as he was being constantly harassed by drug pushers.

“Midway through the haircut, the barber told me one of the pushers was outside the shop. Since I am a person who cannot bear to see anything bad happening in front of me, I burst out of the shop and nabbed the man,” he said.

The pusher, who had 10 tubes of heroin hidden in his anus, was handed over to the police station.

The barber, out of fear, had closed his shop, only for Sundram to return there to complete the haircut. “He was relieved when I told him I was a policeman and that he should continue operating without fear.”

Then Petaling Jaya police chief, the late Anthony Petrus, who was informed of the drug arrest, told Sundram no one was to know of his posting as he had to go undercover to unearth illicit samsu brewers.

It was at a time when 17 people nationwide had died after consuming samsu – the killer liquor with alcohol content of up to 50%. The brew was popular largely among poor Indians who paid 50 cents for a mug or a dollar for a bottle.

To penetrate one syndicate, he posed as a shabbily-dressed lorry driver and a generous samsu drinker buying drinks all round but pouring his brew onto the ground. Dogged stakeouts by Sundram and his partner in a jungle off Subang Jaya bore fruit. Police uncovered four massive unhygienic underground distilleries in the jungle and detained four moonshiners. The samsu was enough to supply the whole of Petaling Jaya and Klang.

Sundram’s identity then became well known as his picture was plastered on the cover of all the newspapers.

In 1983, he became a media sensation again when an image of him carrying $1.5 million in ransom stuffed in a bedsheet hit the front pages of newspapers following the release of a kidnapped multi-millionaire.

Sundram played a crucial role in the recovery of the money from a shophouse off Old Klang Road, Kuala Lumpur, after Ang Guan Seng, the managing director of Petaling Gardens Bhd, was freed after 18 days of captivity.

He was also part of the elite teams that probed six other kidnappings in Kuala Lumpur and Petaling Jaya before Ang was taken.

Sundram said he was nicknamed ‘007’ “because I did a lot of shooting to immobilise suspects.”

But he could have been ‘The Saint’ as well because he drove a Volvo P1800 similar to the one driven by actor Roger Moore in his role as the crime fighter, Simon Templar.

While Moore drove a right-hand ‘halo’ car, Sundram said his left-hand, American version Volvo P1800, was the only one still running in Southeast Asia.

At one point, Sundram, the ex-president of the Malaysia and Singapore Vintage Car Register, and currently helming the Volvo Classic Club of Malaysia, owned 43 motorcycles, including a 1919 Harley Davidson.

Today, his collection of cars includes an Austin 7 and a Fiat 500. They and his bikes like the Matchless, one of the oldest marques of British motorcycles, are the centrepiece of community events which he regularly organises.

Sundram and his wife Florence often act as guardians to the needy, including reformed criminals, who seek various forms of assistance.

“Being a police officer is all I wanted to do, I miss being the law,” said Sundram.