Malaysia Tamilar Munnetra Kalagam member Iswaree Subramaniam, who was at the police station, claimed the man’s family was in shock as Sivabalan Subramaniam was taken in to assist in an investigation at 11.45am this morning.
“The police incident report says he died at 12.25pm.
“However, the police called Sivabalan’s sister at about 3pm to say her brother was in critical condition at the Selayang hospital,” she told FMT.
She questioned the discrepancies of the timing between the incident report and the claim that Sivabalan was still in critical condition “a few hours after his death”.
Iswaree added that the police had arrested Sivabalan over an extortion case that happened in 2016.
Sivabalan’s death comes less than a month after the same police station was embroiled in a controversy over the death of cow milk trader A Ganapathy while in police custody. Ganapathy died in hospital on April 18, more than a month after being taken there from the police station on March 8.
That case saw netizens expressing their outrage on social media with hashtags like “#JusticeForGanapathy” and “#BrutalityinMalaysia”.
Sivabalan’s sister Thanalechumy added that she received a call at 2.58pm today from Gombak IPD, stating that her brother was in serious condition at Selayang Hospital.
“Please send someone from your family to come see him,” she was told by the officer.
She said that at about 4pm, a policeman told her mother that Sivabalan died due to breathing difficulties. They were then told to go to the forensics department.
“Up till now, we still do not know what happened to my brother except that the policeman told me that Sivabalan died at 12.25pm,” she said, further asking the reason for the police only calling them at about 3pm today.
Gombak district police chief Arifai Tarawe told FMT that he has been informed of the matter.
“We will be investigating the matter,” he said.
K Ganesh, the lawyer who handled Ganapathy’s case, was also present at the police station.
“Sivabalan’s body is now at Kuala Lumpur hospital mortuary and we will probe further what happened,” he told FMT.
Over the years, many custodial death incidents have hit the headlines. Among them were Kugan Ananthan (2009), Sugumar Chelladury (2013), Karuna Nithi Palani Velu (2013), Dharmendran Narayanasamy (2013) and Balamurugan Suppiah (2017).
This has prompted social media users and activists to ask the government to put a stop to police brutality and to set up the Independent Police Complaints and Misconduct Commission (IPCMC).
In a statement later, Arifai said the suspect had difficulty breathing and the Selayang Hospital was called to attend to the emergency.
He added that the initial investigation showed that the suspect suffered from heart problems and the case has been classified as sudden death, pending a full report from the Hospital Kuala Lumpur forensic department.