KUALA LUMPUR, May 22 ― Klang MP Charles Santiago has called on newly appointed Inspector-General of Police (IGP) Datuk Seri Acryl Sani Abdullah Sani to act swiftly in aiding independent investigation on the recent custodial death of Sivabalan Subramaniam.
The DAP lawmaker said the new IGP must take appropriate action to ensure a full accounting of what had transpired.
“This has happened under his watch. So the IGP must come up with a plan to investigate the matter,’’ said Charles.
However, Charles stressed that the National Human Rights Commission (Suhakam) and the Enforcement Agency Integrity Commission (EAIC) must take lead in the investigation and not the police themselves.
“As I said before, the police investigating themselves should not be the way forward. There must be a new way of conducting these investigations,’’ he said to the Malay Mail.
Charles had previously stated all the police officers involved in Sivabalan’s arrest must be suspended pending a full investigation.
Earlier today, Charles along with Selayang MP William Leong had visited Subramaniam’s home in Taman Selayang Mutiara to pay their last respects to the deceased and to stand in solidarity with the family.
“The family are looking at a full account of what had happened and they are seeing justice,’’ he said.
Charles again raised the concerns of the family on the discrepancies of Sivabalan’s time and cause of death where the police report stated that he died at 12.25pm but his sister claimed to have received a call from the police at 3pm saying Sivabalan was seriously ill in Selayang hospital.
“The report against Sivabalan was also made in 2016 and the police only acted a few years after that.
“The discrepancy plus the police had said that the deceased died of a heart attack less than an hour after he was arrested, this warrants an investigation and inquest,’’ he said.
On May 20, news portal Free Malaysia Today reported that Sivabalan died after less than an hour in police custody.
Tamilar Munnetra Kalagam Malaysia member Iswaree Subramaniam, who was at the police station, claimed that the man’s family was shocked that Sivabalan Subramaniam was detained to assist in the investigation at 11.45am, Thursday morning.
The news portal reported that Iswaree questioned the time difference between the incident report and the allegation Sivabalan was still in critical condition “a few hours after his death”.
Iswaree added that police arrested Sivabalan in connection with an extortion case that took place in 2016.
