AG’s turn to “memperbodohkan” Malaysians

Ravinder Singh

In refusing to prosecute the two police palace guards against whom technician Saravanan Batumalai had made a police report after ramming the motorcycle they were riding away after they were seen by him committing a snatch theft, the Attorney General (AG) has given the excuse that they had “strong alibis to show they were elsewhere at the time and day the crime took place”. So Saravanan must have been hallucinating, drunk or insane, etc?

Is it for the AG to make a decision on the alibis and NFA (no further action) the case? Has he not usurped the powers of the court to put the defence story of the alibis to test in a trial before deciding the truth or otherwise of the story?

Saravanan says he had positively identified both the rider and pillion of the motorcycle he had rammed into. The identification was done twice and on both occasions he had picked them out. He says he could recognise them positively as they had not been wearing helmets. Is he lying?

It’s also funny how the police could lose the first report that was made. All reports are keyed into the computer and they should be there unless deleted by someone. On August 27, when the story was published in the SUN, i.e. a few weeks after the original report made in July, the police called at his house in the middle of the night and asked him to make a fresh report as the earlier one was “lost”. What sandiwara!

Of course the persons being investigated are not going to admit to the police they had done the wrong which is the subject of the investigation. So going by the AG’s learned excuse, no case need be taken to court as everyone would deny the reports against them and thus AG would not be able to put up a strong case.

By his alibi story, does the AG mean to say that Saravanan had cooked up a great story; that the two policemen he had identified twice were not the persons he had knocked down from the motorcycle, or that he had never knocked any motorcycle down? Does it matter that the motorcycle did not belong to either of them or to the police? If so, every case of stolen vehicles used to commit crime would not be prosecutable even if the culprits are identified.

What the AG means to say is that Saravanan had lodged a false report, that he had maliciously identified two policemen as the snatch-thieves he saw (in a vision?) in the act of committing the crime. So the AG should not let Saravanan get off with his maliciously false report against the two policemen.

The AG must charge Saravanan, and do it immediately. Has he not got enough evidence to charge Saravanan now that he has evidence of the alibi that the two policemen were not at the place and time Saravanan says he knocked their motorcycle down? Can he allow people to make such false claims against members of the police?  Charge Saravanan in court, don’t detain him under detention without trial laws.

Not charging Saravanan will mean that the AG is bending backwards to protect the two policemen. It will mean he has no credibility. It will mean the black sheep in the police are protected people, at all costs.