Police Flexing His Muscles

I am most upset to see police flexing their muscles at the people whom they know very well would not be able to fight back. What coward would do that.

When I received a call from Serian claiming that three persons had been beaten, my first thought was whether they had lodged a police report elsewhere.

A father, Baini and son Sharil including the uncle Jeli were allegedly beaten up by a policeman in Serian last Thursday.

Sharil had gone with friends to ‘lepak’ at a bus stop and when a patrolling police car came, the friends all ran off leaving him behind. He was beaten up, slapped, kicked and punched both at the bus stop and in the police station.

The next morning Baini who heard of his son’s arrest went with his brother to Serian police station at 6 am. They were told to return at 11 am but they went back at 10.30 am. When the family saw the Sharil’s face, they brought him to the Serian hospital for treatment.

Baini and Jeli went back to the police station to get back Sharil’s motorcycle which proved to be a wrong move. While trying to get out the motorcycle, the two brothers were stopped by a police who asked them why they made complaint about him. Jeli retorted that why he, the policeman beat up his nephew. The two brothers were then at the mercy of the police and were punched and kicked.

I read that the media had contacted Serian KPD who assured to give a fair investigation. This is not the only case of police abuse in Serian. The next day, a case handled by my colleague, Wong King Wei was also on police abuse. If indeed, there is a suspect arrested, I don’t think kicking and punching him is the answer to get him charged. Everyone has their rights, in case the police forget that one.

The public has lost faith and confidence in the police. Yet once too often, they always appeared in the news for all the wrong reasons. Shooting dead teenager, corruption of police, suspects died in their lockup and now we have to deal with this in our own state, abuse of police power.

It is time an Independent police misconduct and complaint commission is set up to stop all these. Absolute power of the police is unhealthy. Someone needs to take a look at their conduct. How many cases would they cover up especially when it involves one of their own man. Stop all these abuses and get down to real crime work.