Assault on journalist should not have happened, says assemblyman

GEORGE TOWN, Jan 3 – The assault on a vernacular newspaper journalist allegedly involving voluntary patrol squad (PPS) personnel last Dec 30 is unacceptable and should not have happened at all.

Datuk Keramat assemblyman Jagdeep Singh Deo, who said this during a press conference here today, said brute force was not the way to handle an issue.

“Whatever the background of this case as stated just now, it did not justify using force against that reporter. That must be made clear,” he said.

He was commenting on an incident in which Guan Ming Dailyjournalist Ang Kean Siang, 32, was beaten up by four men while covering a case at an apartment in Jalan Perak here at 1.30am on Dec 30 last year.

Ang had also claimed that the group smashed his camera for taking photographs of a woman who was found dead and believed to have fallen from an apartment.     

Meanwhile, one of the alleged personnel, Lim Ah Chai, 52, who was also present during the press conference, expressed his readiness to meet and apologise publicly to the victim. – Bernama