No evidence that Sikh boy’s hair was cut by fellow NS trainees

The Defence Ministry says it found no evidence that Basant Singh's hair was cut by fellow trainees, trainers or staff of the Sungai Bakap NS camp.

KUALA LUMPUR: The Defence Ministry which oversees the running of National Service camps, said today that initial investigation did not find any proof that a Sikh boy’s hair was cut by fellow trainers while he was asleep, although the boy had claimed otherwise.

Deputy Defence Minister Abdul Latif Ahmad (BN-Mersing) told the Dewan Rakyat that apart from the lack of evidence on who actually committed the ill deed, investigations also failed to locate the hairs which were said to be cut off the Sikh boy.

He was answering a question from Foong Po Kuan (DAP-Batu Gajah) who wanted to know how the investigation into the case was proceeding.

In January, the trainee, Basant Singh, alleged that his hair was cut while asleep at the Sungai Bakap NS training camp. This caused an uproar, with opposition members of parliament taking the NS Department to task over the issue.

Abdul Latif said the ministry through the department had interviewed about 16 witnesses of the alleged incident.

“Witnesses include fellow trainees who were in the same dormitory who gave statement that they were unaware of such an incident,” he said.

The deputy minister said two levels of investigations into the case were carried out. The first being an investigation at the camp level on Jan 17 and the second by the NS department on Jan 19.

The outcome of the second investigation is pending.

He said although the investigators questioned 16 people, they never interviewed the boy who complained of the incident as he was on leave from camp.

He also said that the government would not discontinue the NS programme just because of one or two unpleasant incidents.

“If a death occurred in school compounds by accident, don’t tell me you want to close down the (whole) school,?” he told Foong after she queried if the government would close down NS camps which had such problems. - FMT