PETALING JAYA, July 29 — Home Minister Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi must not preclude the possible involvement of police officers in the assassination attempt on crime watchdog activist R. Sri Sanjeevan before an investigation is completed, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim said today
The opposition leader pointed out that Sanjeevan had been working on exposing the alleged links between rogue officers and the criminal underworld before the shooting last Saturday afternoon.
“I regret that this should come out from Datuk Zahid,” Anwar (picture) told a packed press conference at the PKR headquarters here.
“This cannot just be summarily dismissed,” he added.
PKR strategy director Rafizi Ramli, who was also at the press conference, said when he met Sanjeevan last Friday night, the latter told him that he had obtained an internal police memo on a list of cops being investigated for their alleged involvement with drug syndicates.
“He’d planned to disclose it this week,” said Rafizi.
According to the Pandan MP, Sanjeevan said the amount of drugs involved was in the kilogrammes. But Rafizi said the chairman of the MyWatch crime watchdog did not give him a copy of the memo, nor did he specify the number or ranks of police officers who were under internal investigation.
“It is important for the police not just to stop at the links between the police force and the underworld, but go beyond that,” said Rafizi. “It may involve other people in the Home Ministry.”
Anwar also urged Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar to beef up security at the hospital where Sanjeevan is being treated.
“Without going too much into the details, we know that the current security detail is grossly inadequate,” said the PKR de facto leader.
“Keadilan notes that IGP Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar has pledged a thorough investigation and we cannot over-emphasise the importance that it be conducted in the most professional and impartial way,” Anwar added. “There should not be anyone in the investigation team even remotely related to the complaints made by Sanjeevan.”
Ahmad Zahid, who oversees the police force, defended the men in blue yesterday after former IGP Tan Sri Musa Hassan suggested that dirty cops were responsible for the shooting in a bid to silence Sanjeevan.
Sanjeevan was shot by a man riding pillion on a motorcycle that pulled up beside his silver BMW when he wound down his window to smoke a cigarette while at a junction near Taman Awana Indah in Jempol, Negri Sembilan, at about 4.30pm last Saturday.
The 29-year-old managed to drive off despite being badly injured, leaving his assailants behind, but stopped some 300 metres from the scene where his friend who was in the car with him, Ramesh Balakrishnan, 35, took over the wheel to take him to Jempol Hospital.
Sanjeevan was later reported to have been rushed to the Kuala Pilah Hospital for surgery and is now being cared for in a Seremban hospital.
He is said to be in a stable condition but is not yet out of the woods.
Sanjeevan tweeted hours before getting shot that “a @PDRMsia cop told some syndicate fellow that he’ll get them firearm & told them to fire few shots at my house to scare me/family!”
Musa, who is a patron of MyWatch, had linked the shooting to Sanjeevan’s work in exposing alleged police links to crime syndicates.
