PETALING JAYA: Former inspector-general of police (IGP) Mohammed Hanif Omar’s name is wreathed in clouds of glory and his reputation is unassailable.
But few know that for the longest-serving IGP, there was too much heartbreak for one man and his family to endure.
Hanif was 13 when his father died, and as a police officer he lost his almost three-year-old daughter, brother and son in separate heartbreaking circumstances.
His son, Abdul Rahmat and daughter, Norazza, have opened up about the grief endured by Hanif, who died from kidney failure yesterday, aged 85.
They said Hanif, who became the fourth IGP at the age of 35, often had sad thoughts about the devastating loss of his loved ones, but tried hard not to be overcome by them.
The sudden loss of his father made Hanif an insomniac, said Rahmat, while Norazza said: “My father never stopped talking about his beloved father, or stopping to gaze at his picture in his room until he died.”
Losing “backbone”
Although Teluk Intan-born Hanif was the apple of his father’s eye, he was brought up to be independent as quickly as possible, said Rahmat.
“At seven, his father said to him, ‘Hanif, tomorrow you go to the school and enrol yourself. If anyone asks, just tell them you are Omar’s son’.”
Rahmat said alone his father went, and because others had their parents with them, no one saw him.
“As the school was about to be closed for the day, the teacher saw him sitting alone and asked, ‘who are you and why are you here?”
“He replied, ‘I am Omar’s son’. The teacher exclaimed why he hadn’t told her that earlier.”
Rahmat said one day, Omar Muhammad said, “Hanif, a week from now you will not have any backbone. My father didn’t know what that meant.”
Omar worked at the district office and was the billiards champion. A week later, he suffered a heart attack defending his title, “exactly a week after the prophetic message he told my father.”
When Hanif, then 13, heard the news he ran barefoot to look for his father first at the hospital, then at the billiards club.
At the mortuary, Hanif never left the side of his father’s body.
“He slept very little for fear that someone would take the body away while he was asleep, and for fear that he might miss the opportunity to be with his father for the last time,” said Rahmat.
“As a result he became insomniac, sleeping three hours a day, at most. His insomnia allowed him to read and read,” he recalled.
He said: “From that point on, he was the man of the house, and had to be independent. And that led him to be who he was later in his life.”
Tragedy of Juliana
In 1966, former prime minister Abdul Razak Hussein persuaded Hanif, then a special branch staff officer in Bukit Aman, to accompany him to Bangkok for the negotiations to end the confrontation with Indonesia.
Hanif was reluctant to leave his daughter Juliana, who was suffering from thalassemia major, and had been given not long to live.
“Just one night,” Razak told Hanif, according to Rahmat, retired captain of the Royal Malaysian Air Force and an aviation investigator.
Norazza said: “My dad was so dedicated to his country. He told me recently that he knew Juliana was not going to survive but decided against telling my mother.”
She said her mother, Hamidah Abdul Hamid, was completely on her own, ferrying Juliana back and forth to hospital.
Juliana passed on during the negotiations with Indonesia’s foreign minister Adam Malik. She was two years and 11 months old.
Said Rahmat: “Razak, who was told of her death by his aide-de-camp, quietly went up to his room and locked himself in.
“My father knocked on the door to request permission to leave for Kuala Lumpur, but Razak never opened the door.
“In the end, my father climbed up the hotel wall and entered Razak’s room through the window.
“Razak quickly held a newspaper in front of his face, replying to my father’s request only with a grunt. Razak was crying but did not want my father to see.”
Losing dear brother
When Hanif’s brother Ainuddin passed away following a motorcycle accident in August 1975, he was away in Sandakan, Sabah, due to a critical situation.
Mustapha Datu Harun, the then chief minister of Sabah, offered to send Hanif back to Kuala Lumpur in his private aircraft.
Rahmat said: “Upon arrival in KL, my father went straight to the prime minister’s residence to report the situation.
“When done, my father asked Razak, ‘may I take emergency leave for one day, sir?’
“Razak asked, ‘what for?’ and my father replied, ‘my brother passed away yesterday and I want to attend his funeral today’.”
“Razak was aghast and asked Hanif why he didn’t attend the funeral first.
“He then ordered an air force alouette helicopter to fly my father back to his hometown in Teluk Intan. He made it just in time for the burial.”
Burying youngest child
Misfortune struck again in 2013 when the youngest of four siblings, Ahmad Jamal, 40, died after falling unconscious beside his car in Shah Alam.
Jamal was recovering from aneurysm surgery when the incident occurred.
Rahmat said: “Once after visiting my brother’s grave, my father told me how he wished he was not the IGP so he could see his children grow up.
“He lamented how he could not remember ever sleeping and hugging my late brother when he was little.
“I told him that he had saved tens of thousands of lives by doing what he did as the IGP.
“But as a father, he still cried whenever he visited and recited the surah yasin at my brother’s grave.
“The IGP was after all just another father, who put country before himself.”
Norazza said: “He was, until his last breath, a patriot, an honourable gentleman, and a truly loving husband, father, grandfather and brother to his family.
“We will miss his heart of gold, his words of wisdom, his thoughtfulness, steadfastness, kindness, and so many other things, but most of all, we shall miss his undying love.” - FMT
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