The police turned my brother into a criminal

With apologies to Malaysiakini (I scooped this- If it offends Malaysiakini, I shall have it removed) I publish this letter which I thought was interesting.....

The police turned my brother into a criminal

I read with great interest the article in your portal entitled 'Cops, not protesters, are real threat to nation' and must say that I am in complete agreement.

I say this because of the ordeal my family and I went through recently which I dare say was mostly due to some unscrupulous police officers.

Our ordeal started on Feb 9 after I was involved in a quarrel with a neighbour who happens to be friends with two plainclothes detectives from the South Klang police headquarters.

Although my quarrel was with the women in that family, one of the women's husband entered my house and assaulted me. A youth from that family also came charging with a parang which he swung towards me.

Luckily, the parang missed me but hit the pillar of my gate and subsequently left a deep mark.

I went and made a police report, and so did the neighbouring family in addition to consulting their detective friends.

That night my younger brother, who is an assistant manager with a fast food outlet, came home at about midnight and learnt what had happened. Because of this, he then stood in our compound and shouted that hitting a woman was sheer cowardice and challenged them to take him on if they had the guts.

At about 5.00am that morning one of the neighbour's detective friends came to our house with two other policemen, and said my brother was under arrest for smashing our neighbour's cars' windscreens.

They would not listen to him when he said that he had nothing to do with the alleged crime. He also asked to be allowed to go to work and open-up the restaurant before reporting to the police. They refused, and obtained a remand order the same morning for my 24-year-old brother who has never been hauled-up for anything in his entire life.

He was kept there for four days and severely beaten-up by an inspector before he was released.

My brother was punched, slapped, kicked, hit with a rubber hose and a pair handcuffs and told that he would be killed if he complained about being beaten-up. He was also called names are subjected to racial insults by the inspector.

We are also furious that one of the neighbour's detective friends had seated my brother in a room with an alleged extortionist and asked the latter to .........

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