With six deaths in custody already this year, Putrajaya told to table report on the matter in Parliament

KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 4 ― A DAP lawmaker has called on the country’s leadership to make the authorities be accountable for the numerous custodial deaths, including six so far just this year.

Batu Kawan MP Kasthuri Patto said that the lack of accountability and report on custodial deaths has been appalling, and she urged a report to be tabled in Parliament in the coming sitting at the end of this month.

“I call upon the prime minister to instruct the Inspector-General of Police as well as the Commissioner of the Enforcement Agency Integrity Commission (EAIC) to prepare a report on the investigations and findings of custodial deaths from the time the Department of Integrity and Standard Compliance was formed, and that the reports are tabled in Parliament,” she said.

The DAP Women’s secretary said the Parliamentary Special Select Committee on Fundamental Liberty Constitutional Rights must summon the head of the Department of Integrity and Standard Compliance as well as the Commissioner for EAIC to answer and explain on accountability on these custodial deaths.

“I wish to see bullet-speed reaction by the Prime Minister as the Head of the Malaysian Family or Keluarga Malaysia to step up and escalate this matter and ensure that the report on custodial deaths be tabled in the coming Parliament sitting for all,” she said.

Pointing out the most recent case of a 34-year-old detainee who died in custody in Pahang this year, she said that there have already been six deaths of men under police lock-ups the first 34 days of the year.

In 2020, 13 men died in police custody whereas six died for the first 8 months of 2021.

“This year, one person died in police custody every six days. A mockery and travesty that detainees are dying in police custody at such a frightful rate and yet not a single chest-thumping or statement of bravado by the inspector-general of police, the home minister and neither the prime minister on ensuring justice is served for the families of men and women who had died in police custody and a firm undertaking that the perpetrators must be dealt with by the long arm of the law – without fear, favour or prejudice,” she said.

To make matters worse, she said that most custodial deaths go unreported with only one in four cases making news.

For example, from 2002 till 2016, there were 257 custodial deaths but only 62 reported in the media, and mostly of Indian ethnicity whereas the reality was that more Malay men were dying in police lock-ups.

She questioned whether any investigation has been carried out by the Department of Integrity and Standard Compliance which was formed under former IGP Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar some nine years ago, which has increased in the recent past.

“The newly formed Criminal Investigation Unit on Deaths in Custody in December 2021, parked under the police’s Integrity and Standards Compliance Department must be having its hands full in dealing with six deaths in custody this year alone.

She said there are numerous government agencies and departments that investigate, overlook, set standards and monitor custodial deaths including the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC), EAIC, the Department of Integrity and Standard Compliance and the Criminal Investigation Unit on Deaths in Custody, but they have been silent on these incidents.