PETALING JAYA: MIC has accused PKR and its vice-president N Surendran(pic) of deliberately delaying the second post-mortem of deceased security guard C Sugumar for its political mileage.
MIC Youth chief T Mohan claimed today that Surendran, who is also Sugumar’s family lawyer, had lied about the importance of Form 61 in relation to the second post-mortem and the ban on Thailand pathologist Dr Porntip Rojanasunan.
Speaking to FMT, Mohan said Form 61 was not a necessity for conducting a second post-mortem in any government hospitals.
According to him, Form 61 is only used if one is seeking to secure a cost-free post-mortem.
“We can still carry out the second post-mortem in any government hospitals by paying them,” he said, citing the case of A Kugan who died in police custody.
Mohan said Kugan’s family had conducted the second post-mortem without the so-called Form 61.
“I’m very sure about this because MIC was the one which bore the cost of the second post-mortem of Kugan.
“Thus it is clear that Surendran is deliberately delaying the second post-mortem by giving lame excuses,” Mohan said.
He was responding to Surendran’s statement yesterday that Sugumar’s family was waiting for the government to issue the Form 61 to enable them to carry out a second post-mortem.
Sugumar was allegedly chased, handcuffed and beaten to death on Jan 23, by policemen and several members of the public.
But the first post-mortem from Serdang General Hospital showed that Sugumar died instead of a heart attack.
On Feb 8, Surendran claimed that the authorities were sabotaging the attempt to conduct a second post-mortem to determine Sugumar’s cause of death.
He also said the Health Ministry was requesting for an authorisation letter from the police.
However, MIC revealed a letter from the Kajang district police headquarters on Feb 1 which authorised the family to conduct a second post-mortem.
Later, Surendran said the letter issued by the Kajang police was not an authorisation letter but a “no-objection” note which was useless to the family for purposes of a second post-mortem.
Surendran also said that government hospitals would only conduct a post-mortem if there was a written order from the police through Form 61.
Surendran also urged the federal government to lift the ban on Porntip to make way for her to conduct the post-mortem.
Porntip not banned?
But Mohan(Pic) claimed that Porntip was not banned from coming to Malaysia and conducting the second post-mortem.
“It is already one month. But, Surendran has failed to produce the evidence on Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak’s involvement in the Porntip debacle,” said Mohan.
Pornthip was engaged by Surendran on behalf of the family of Sugumar to conduct the second post-mortem. Soon after agreeing to do the autopsy, Pornthip did an about-turn and declined the offer.
Surendran has since alleged that the Thai government was acting at the behest of Najib and in the interest of Malaysia-Thailand bilateral relations by asking the Thai pathologist to turn down the request from Sugumar’s family.
MIC has challenged Surendran to reveal the evidence to prove his allegations against the prime minister. But the latter has failed to do so.
“Even if Pornthip refuses to come here, we can always hire other private pathologists in Malaysia or overseas to do same the job.
“Why is the PKR man reluctant to bring other pathologists?
“The body of the deceased is still in the mortuary for more than two months now just because of Surendran ‘political game’,” Mohan said, adding that Sugumar’s family is already devastated by his death and is enduring a lot of hardship.
Mohan also reiterated MIC’s offer to bear all the costs of a second post-mortem in any hospital.
