JOHOR BARU, April 15 — The Tebrau Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) division has condemned the claims of a mosque committee chairman who alleged he was assaulted and had his mobile phone snatched from him after Friday prayers in Kota Masai two days ago.
PKR Tebrau chief Steven Choong said the claims by the 45-year-old man were untrue as the real victims were actually two of the party’s volunteers.
“It was the mosque chairman who acted in a rough manner where two PKR volunteers, a male and female, were physically assaulted after he chased them away from the public road outside of the Kota Masai mosque.
“The issue was later settled with the mosque chairman as we didn’t want to prolong the issue, but later we learnt that it was wrongly reported in two Malay language online portals and a police report was lodged by him,” he said in a media conference at the Tebrau PKR office in Taman Daya here.
Present at the event was PKR volunteers Yahya Harun, 42, and Habibah Draman, 51, who both said the mosque chairman acted in a harsh manner.
Both have since lodged separate police reports claiming that they were pushed and shoved, while Habibah suffered a back injury as she claimed that she was punched by the mosque chairman during a scuffle.
On Friday, it was reported that the mosque chairman, identified as Herman Irmadi, alleged that he was punched twice on his head by two men and had his mobile phone taken away after Friday prayers at the Kota Masai mosque.
He alleged that the incident stemmed from a minor disagreement after he had approached the group who were handing-out political literature outside the mosque that caused a traffic congestion.
It was learnt that Herman is also the Tebrau Umno deputy permanent chairman.
Choong said that the Tebrau PKR have serviced the area, including the Kota Masai mosque, for more than a year and never had any problems with the mosque’s congregation after their Friday prayers.
“Our volunteers are responsible enough and we don’t tie-up traffic as we just want to distribute our Selangorkini newspapers,” he said, adding that the incident may have been sparked due to a busy atmosphere as Hizbut Tahrir Malaysia (HTM) also held a protest on the Palestinian cause in the area.
Meanwhile, Yahya said that he initially didn’t think much about the incident and believed that the issue was settled after he had discussed with the mosque chairman.
“I even took a selfie with him to show that there were no ill feelings.
“It was only later at night that I found out that the mosque chairman had lodged a police report claiming he was the victim from the media,” he said, adding that he also lodged a covering report on the claims.
Habibah claimed she was upset with the mosque chairman’s high-handed tactic of shoving her and punching her back.
She said she lodged a police report on the matter before seeking medical treatment at the Hospital Sultan Ismail yesterday.
