KUALA LUMPUR, MAY 31- There is no need to establish the Independent Police Misconduct and Complaints Commission (IPCMC), said Minister for Governance and Integrity Paul Low.
He said there is an existing channel called the Enforcement Agency Integrity Commission (EAIC) that would perform the same duties as the IPCMC.
“There is no need to form the IPCMC, we already have a channel that allows the public to lodge complaints with regard to the enforcement agencies called the EAIC,” he said.
“There is lack of awareness. I believe that the only thing left to do is to educate the public on how one can lodge a complaint via the EAIC,” he added.
Meanwhile, Low also said he had brought up N Dhamendran’s case at the Cabinet meeting held yesterday.
Dhamendran, 32, died in police custody on May 21. The post-mortem reported concluded that he had died of blunt force trauma and the case has been classified as murder.
The police headquarters in Bukit Aman has since established the case as murder and had set up an independent task force to investigate the issue.
“We as the government, need to act on this issue urgently. I brought it up at the Cabinet meeting yesterday and the outcome was positive,” Low told a press conference.
He said Home Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi has agreed to cooperate and work with the relevant people.
“The minister has also promised to urge the police to hasten their investigations in Dhamendran’s case,” he added.
Also present at the press conference was Performance Management and Delivery Unit (Pemandu) director D Ravindran, whom Dhamendran’s family accused of harassing them.
Ravindran explained that there were no conversations hinting towards a settlement nor asking the family to disengage their lawyers.
“I only called the father V Narayanasamy to tell him that a minister with the PM’s Department would like to meet the family to convey his condolences and offer help to seek justice for the deceased,” he said.
“The father kept telling me that they were too busy and were unable to meet the minister. I even offered to bring the minister to the Bukit Aman police headquarters where the father said they were going to lodge a report,” he added.
Genuine in wanting to help family
Ravindran said he later managed to speak to the PKR MP R Sivarasa with the help of Bersih chairperson S Ambiga.
“That was when I contacted Sivarasa to express our willingness to work together with anyone for that matter to help the grieving family find justice,” he said.
Low added that they would not “harass” the family any further and would maintain Sivarasa as their only point of contact.
“If we continue to call the family, they are going to say that we are harassing them again. We want to avoid this,” he said.
“From now on, we will only keep in touch with Sivarasa but we are still willing to help the family in any way possible,” he added.
Low also pleaded to the media and all political parties to help the family sincerely if possible and not politicise the issue.
“We have a grieving family here, we should not use them for political benefit. We are sincere in helping the family, we hope others who want to help are on the same wavelength,” he said.
