The Malaysian Insight

POLICE will seek an inquest into the shooting of three men in Gombak, Selangor, last week following contradictory statements from various parties over the incident, said Inspector-General of Police Abdul Hamid Bador.

Hamid said the inquest should be carried out quickly as there have been all sorts of statements and accusations being bandied around.

The IGP, however, expressed confidence that his men acted accordingly and that the standard operating policy (SOP) when discharging firearms was strictly adhered to.

He was commenting on the incident last Saturday where police gunned down three men following a shoot-out near Rawang, Selangor.

The dead were Janarthanan Vijayaratnam, a Sri Lankan with permanent residency (PR) in the UK, his brother-in-law, Thavaselvan Govindasamy and a friend, Maghendran Santhirasegaran.

Family of the victims allege that Janarthanan’s wife, Moganambal Govindasamy, was also in the car but she is now missing. Police earlier said there was no woman in the car with the suspects.

The family also allege that Janarthanan, his wife and their three children arrived in Kuala Lumpur on August 27 for a visit, their first trip here in six years.

“We have decided on the inquest. Let’s wait for it. Everyone who has been saying things will be called to give their testimony,” Hamid said during a press conference in George Town today.

Earlier today, Janarthanan’s family provided air tickets and a luggage tag under the deceased’s name, to show proof that he had come into the country on August 27.

They were refuting a police statement that there was no record of Janarthanan having the country after he was shot dead.

They said Janarthanan, Moganambal and their three children had come to visit their family in Malaysia on August 27. The family claimed they had been in the UK during the past six years and that this was their first visit since 2013.

Police had also said that Janarthanan was allegedly involved in a house break-in in Sentul, Kuala Lumpur on 2016, which his family had again denied, saying that he was in the UK at that time.  

The family was at the office of their lawyer, M. Manoharan, who urged police to reveal the dash-cam recording from the police car when the shootout took place on September 14.

Selangor police chief Noor Azam Jamaludin said a missing person’s report has been lodged on Moganambal and police are investigating. – September 20, 2019.