A second postmortem will be performed on R Sundara Raju who died after he was allegedly beaten by five other detainees in a lock-up at the Klang police district headquarters last Friday.

The postmortem, at Universiti Malaya Medical Centre, will be conducted due to a request from family members who claimed the circumstances surrounding the 32-year-old lorry driver's death was "very suspicious".

"I want to find out who beat my husband was it the police or the other detainees?" the deceased's widow, M Latha told malaysiakini.

According to Keadilan leader N Gobalakrishnan, who was present at the first postmortem conducted at Klang's Tengku Ampuan Rahimah Hospital, the integrity of the original report was compromised by the presence of police officers from the district headquarters.

"We are asking for a second postmortem because police officers from the Klang police station, were in the postmortem room taking notes.

"To our legal knowledge, if an officer is present, it should be an investigating officer either from Bukit Aman or from a different station," he said when contacted.

According to Gobalakrishnan and Seremban Action Team (an NGO) chairperson B Kalaivanar, a person from the forensics department informed them that police officers were watching the postmortem when they waited outside the morgue.

"When we were told this, we rushed in and took pictures of the officers. One of them was the investigating officer from Klang who was taking notes. He said he was working under orders from the OCPD (officer in charge of police district)," said Kalaivanar.

However, Gobalakrishnan said it may be possible that no such order was issued but he has yet to check with the OCPD as he did not want to interfere in the ongoing investigation.

Klang OCPD A Paramasivam could not be reached for comment.

Domestic violence

Sundara Raju was arrested on Nov 11 after his 27-year-old wife lodged a domestic violence report against him a day earlier. He had allegedly assaulted her and threatened to burn her alive.

When she contacted the police the next day, she was told that since her husband's case was not a serious one, he could be out on bail soon.

However, she did not receive any word from the police until Nov 15, when she was told that her husband was warded at the Tengku Ampuan Rahimah Hospital.

The officer who called refused to divulge any further details.

"I thought he was in the ward for a fever or something, but when I saw the state he was in, I felt sakit hati (heart-broken).

"There were bruises on his arms and body and his eyes were swollen. I could not see injuries on his head.

"When I reported him, I just wanted to frighten him and make him remorseful so that he would stop beating me. But now he has been beaten until he is dead," said Latha.

Activist detained

In a related matter, a social activist was detained for trespassing when he took a photograph of the deceased at the Tengku Ampuan Rahimah Hospital morgue on Sunday.

Suara Warga Pertiwi (SWP) co-ordinator K Ramasamy said a security guard at the hospital escorted him to see the corpse at 12.20am.

"There were some head injuries and both eyes were swollen. There were also blue-black marks all over his body, like he was punched. I also saw some small wounds on his body and leg," he said.

However, an argument broke out between him and the nurses when he snapped a photograph of the victim.

Police then detained him and took him to the district headquarters when a report was lodged by the hospital staff.

He was then asked to hand over his camera but he refused. Ramasamy was later released on police bail after his statement was recorded.

He has to return to the police headquarters on Nov 30 to check if he is to be charged.

Ramasamy's colleague, V Selvam claimed that the arrest was mysterious and questioned the motive behind it.

"We want to know whether it was done to cover up something," he said.

Second death

Sundara Raju is the second person to have died while under custody at the district headquarters in the past two weeks.

Last Monday, M Uthayamaran, 33, died on the way to the Kajang Hospital. The postmortem report said that the cause of death was related to a heart disease.

However, his widow V Madavi suspects foul play and has demanded for an inquest.

The wife of another detainee who shared a cell with Uthayamaran, P Tamil Selvi, also lodged a separate report alleging that police brutality had caused the death of the former.

Uthayamaran was arrested with eight other men on suspicion of being involved in criminal activities.

Madavi's lawyer and DAP deputy secretary-general M Kulasegaran said the police never specified what these activities were.

The death rate of individuals in police custody has risen 225% from 2000 to 2002, according to Parti Reformasi Insan Malaysia's (Prim) Police Watch and Human Rights Committee, using figures supplied by Deputy Home Minister Chor Chee Heung.

When answering a question in Parliament on Oct 14, Chor said that six people died in police custody in 2000, 10 died in 2001, while 18 have died so far up to September 2002.