A memorandum alleging that the police force is trigger-happy was handed to Home Ministry parliamentary secretary Abu Zahar Isnin and National Unity and Social Development Ministry parliamentary secretary S Veerasingam by members of Parti Reformasi Insan Malaysia (Prim).

The 'Memorandum on a Trigger Happy Royal Malaysian Police Force' contained 25 items including the statistic that 1.3 people are shot dead by the police every week in Malaysia based on figures announced by then Deputy Home Minister Abdul Kadir Sheikh Fadzir in Parliament in 1999.

It also asked Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, who is also Home Minister, to call for a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the "alarmingly high incidence" of police shootings.

When Prim pro-tem secretary-general P Uthayakumar (photo), accompanied by the victim's families, handed Abu Zahar the memo outside Dewan Rakyat yesterday, the parliament secretary said that he would pass it on to Abdullah.

Meanwhile, Veerasingam, who also accepted the memo, took down the particulars of four women widowed by police shootings, and promised to aid them.

"We will provide welfare help for them so that their children can go to school, and also for their food," he said.

The widows had previously written to National Unity and Social Development Minister Siti Zaharah Sulaiman for an emergency fund but they did not receive a response.

When asked about the earlier letters, Veerasingam said that they were a "different issue".

Three recent cases

The memorandum, prepared by Prim's Police Watch and Human Rights Committee, also highlighted three recent cases of police shootings that occurred within a two-week period this year and left three widows and nine orphaned chidren in its wake.

The three widows, who are all pregnant, have claimed that the police had given them a false account of events regarding their husbands' deaths and have lodged reports alleging that the police pre-meditated the killings.

Five DAP members of parliament including Kota Melaka MP Kerk Kim Hock, Bukit Mertajam MP Chong Eng and Seputeh MP Teresa Kok were also present at the press conference held later to lend their support to the victim's families.

Kerk, who is also DAP secretary-general, announced that the party was determined to push the issue of trigger-happy police shootings.

"The DAP will support this call for a Royal Commission of Inquiry and DAP MPs will continue to put pressure on the government if the Home Ministry does not set up an inquiry.

"We will definitely raise this issue in the next session of Parliament," he said.

However, he added the caveat that the DAP were only against "unnecessary and unjustified shootings", but not those cases where the police were forced to shoot in self-defence.

New Zealand statistics

The memorandum, which is an update of an earlier memo handed to Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad in 2000, also included statistics from the New Zealand police force that showed only 18 people had been shot dead by police there from 1940 to March 2001.

It also revealed that the New Zealand police had an auditor who accounted for ammunition discharged by police firearms in all instances.

"In New Zealand every bullet is accounted for. There is an auditor, but currently, we don't have such a procedure," Uthayakumar said.

The memorandum also protested against 'Operasi Copperhead' a police operation against "Malaysian Indian criminals". The operation was labelled as an "illegal, unlawful and racist policy by the Malaysian police force".

It also highlighted the fact that at least three cases of Indian youths dying in police custody had surfaced within a six-week period this year, citing the case of Vivashanu Pillai, a youth who police claimed escaped from custody and was found dead in the Klang River two days later.

His family has since lodged a police report alleging the police murdered him and dumped him into the river but there has been no inquest into the case as yet.

The memorandum also called on the Chief Justice and Attorney-General to hold inquiries into each and every death by police shooting to ensure that "the rule of law is upheld and justice is being seen to be done" for the "innocent victims of abuse by the police".

Within 48 hours

The memorandum also proposed that the Inspector-General of Police should notify in writing the Bar Council, the Malaysian Human Rights Commission (Suhakam), the Attorney-General, human rights NGOs Hakam and Suaram, Prim's Police Watch and the Seremban Action Team (an NGO) within 48 hours in all instances of fatal police shootings.

Other proposals included sending all police personnel for human rights talks as proposed by Suhakam in June 2000, making the Home Minister answerable and accountable to Parliament for all fatal shootings and amending the Police Act to charge the Officer in Charge of Police District (OCPD) if no inquiry is initiated within two weeks.

The memorandum took the media to task for "not doing justice" by publishing stories that "aided the police in making out these innocent suspects (before being found guilty) to appear as criminals".

It called for the media to accord "a fair, balanced and sensible reporting" so that readers would not be prejudiced into thinking that the police were "justified in their actions in all such circumstances".

Previous appeals to the government to take action against trigger-happy police have not received any response.

In Oct and Dec 1998, a total of 119 NGOs handed a memorandum to the government calling for independent investigations into a number of fatal shootings by the police, especially the deaths in Tumpat, Kelantan and Balakong, Sungei Besi.

In March, 2001, the Bar Council also issued a memorandum calling for more safeguards and checks by the Attorney-General, Inspector-General, Chief Judge and Home Minister in fatal police shootings.

The Bar annual general meeting's resolution for 2001 also unanimously denounced police shootings and expressed concern over the high number of fatalities. More on trigger-happy cops