ROBBER COPS: It's a COVER-UP - good Samaritan

PETALING JAYA - Technician Saravanan Batumalai who risked his life when he went to the aid of a woman and fought off two robbers in July here, expressed his disappointment on learning that the suspects he picked out from a police identification parade were let off the hook last week due to legal technicalities.

Saravanan, 27, told theSun today that he was shocked by the outcome of the case and felt it was a cover-up by police, as the two men he had picked out in an identification parade were policemen stationed as guards at Istana Negara.

"I am 100% sure that the two suspects I picked out from the identification parade days after the robbery were the two men who attempted to rob a woman whom I tried to help near my workplace at Taman Mayang on July 3.

"There were witnesses to the attack and I cannot forget their faces as they were not wearing helmets. So how can they say there is a lack of evidence? I am shocked and I cannot help but think that this is a cover-up," he said.

He said the manner in which the investigation took shape from the beginning was indicative that it would go nowhere, as those in charge of the probe were evasive each time he enquired on the progress of their findings.

Saravanan said after he lodged a police report on the day of the crime, police had only called him up for the identification parade and he never heard from them until his story was frontpaged in theSun on Aug 27.

"For almost two months, they were dead silent about the case and then after the story was published, they turned up at my house at almost midnight the same day and persuaded me to lodge another report.

"I was confused as to why I should do that as I had made my first report. Where did my first report go? However, I complied and made a second report which was identical to my first report.

"Though I lost my gold chain to the robbers and my car was damaged, it never once crossed my mind to seek any sympathy or financial aid. All I wanted was to help as a civic conscious citizen but looks like my efforts were in vain," he said.

Police said on Tuesday that the Attorney-General's Chambers had decided that no further action would be taken against two police constables in their 20's who were being investigated for the robbery as they had strong alibis to show they were elsewhere at the time the crime took place.

Saravanan had gone to the aid of a woman who was attacked by two snatch thieves on a motorcycle at Taman Mayang by ramming into them and their motorcycle.

The woman was saved but the crooks confronted Saravanan at knife-point and snatched a gold chain from his neck before fleeing on foot when he confronted them. The woman, believed to be a foreigner was never identified as she did not show up to lodge a report.

However, while Saravanan was lodging a report at the Kelana Jaya police station on the same day, he was taken aback on learning from the police themselves that the motorcycle used by the robbers belonged to a policeman.

One of the two cops he picked out among a dozen policemen in an identification parade is said to be the owner of the motorcycle.

However, police said the policeman who owned the motorcycle told investigators that he had sold the machine to an unidentified man weeks before the robbery.

The Sundaily