The families of three men gunned down in Rawang, Selangor three years ago are preparing to mount a civil action against the police and government.
The proposed legal action also seeks to compel the authorities to trace the whereabouts of G Moganambal, the wife of one of the deceased who went missing following the incident.
The families’ counsel M Visvanathan told Malaysiakini today about their next course of action, following yesterday’s Shah Alam Coroner Court’s inquest verdict that there was an abuse of power during the fatal shooting.
“Yes, we are preparing to file the civil suit,” the lawyer said, adding that the legal action will also seek to get the police to locate Moganambal.
The three men shot dead were G Thavaselvan (above, left), 31, S Mahendran (above, right), 23, and Sri Lankan national J Vijayaratnam, 40. Moganambal was Vijayaratnam's wife.
Visvanathan stressed that the police never carried out any investigation to locate Moganambal.
“Nobody came to court to state the stage of investigations. The mother (of Moganambal) is distraught.
“She (Moganambal) came home from the UK to visit her mother with her children and husband a few days prior (to the shooting).
“Now the husband is dead and she is missing,” the lawyer said.
Abuse of power
Yesterday, Coroner Rasyihah Ghazali ruled that the police were not acting in self-defence when they gunned down the three men at Jalan Batu Arang, at about 5am on Sept 14, 2019.
She noted there was a criminal element in the case and that there was an abuse of power by the authorities.
Police claimed the men were suspected to be members of a house break-in gang and they were killed allegedly during a shootout following a high-speed chase.
Vijayaratnam, who resided in the UK and was the brother-in-law of Thavaselvan, was in Malaysia together with his wife and three children for a visit. Mahendran, meanwhile, was Thavaselvan's friend.
However, the family members of Thavaselvan and Vijayaratnam disputed the police's version of the incident and claimed possible foul play.
They claimed the three men, together with Moganambal, went out for dinner on that fateful night in a Perodua Alza and not a Volkswagen Polo as claimed by the police when they were shot.
The families also called for the police to investigate and reveal what had happened to Moganambal, whom they said had gone missing since. - Mkini
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.