I will like to tell Tan Sri Musa Hassan – resign as Inspector-General of Police as the tearful eye-witness testimony of traumatized 15-year-old Azamuddin Omar on the police killing of his friend, Form III student Aminulrasyid Amzah some 100 metres from the latter’s house in Shah Alam a week ago has completely destroyed your credibility and authority.
If you love the Royal Malaysian Police Force, then you have no other option but to resign immediately to protect the police from the consequences of your gross failures of police leadership as IGP.
For the love of the country and the police force, resign now as IGP!
Let a new IGP start the difficult, painful but not impossible process to restore public confidence in the police where they regard the police as friend and protector and not as threat and even killer of innocent Malaysians, including school-children.
As final amends, in your resignation letter, make two recommendations to the Home Minister and Prime Minister, viz:
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the establishment of a Royal Commission of Inquiry headed by former Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Hanif Omar to inquire not only into the fatal police shooting of Aminulrasyid but also all police shooting deaths since 2005; and
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endorse the proposal of the Dzaiddin Police Royal Commission for the establishment of the Independent Police Complaints and Misconduct Commission (IPCMC) as a key step to create an efficient, incorruptible, professional and world-class police service. If the IPCMC had been set up in 2005 and not blocked in a campaign led by you, Aminulrasyid will still be alive today for there would be a greater sense of professionalism among the police.
This is what I would like to tell Musa but I do not know whether he is amenable to this drastic remedy I have proposed to restore justice to Aminulrasyid and to redeem the good name of Aminulrasyid’s family and that of Azamuddin defamed by public police accounts describing the two schoolboys as “criminals”.
However the cost of Musa’s stubborn refusal to bow to public pressures will be a high one – causing even further estrangement of the police from the Malaysian public and a sharper loss of public confidence in the Malaysian police.
The Malaysian Insider in its report today “Anger against police over Aminul’s death building up on Facebook” said that a week after the Form III boy’s tragic death, more than 60,000 fans had signed up on a Facebook demanding justice and expressing growing anger and concerns over cases of police violence.
It is a terrible indictment on the professionalism of the IGP that he continued to defend the police version that the two students were criminals when Azamuddin had lodged a police report and even given police statement on the same day of the tragic killing at 2 am the previous Monday.
Aminulrasyid has picked up Azamuddin in his sister’s car about midnight last Monday and they had gone to watch a football match (Chelsea vs Stoke) on TV as a restaurant in Section 7, Shah Alam.
Recounting the tragic course of events, Azamuddin was the lone passenger in the car when Aminulrasyid was shot in the back of his head, trying to flee home to seek protection from his mother and family.
Azamuddin categorically denied police claim and testified that Aminulrasyid did not try to ram policemen with his sister’s car.
The Home Minister, Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein should take heed of this mounting public anger, particularly from the young generation of Malaysians.
His reputation and credibility are also on the line if he refuses to act decisively and do what is right to ensure justice for Aminulrasyid, Azamuddin and their families and end the rigmarole of a Abu Seman Special Panel which has no powers to inquire into Aminulrasyid’s death or make recommendations to the Police and forthwith to support the establishment of a Tun Haniff Royal Commission of Inquiry into Aminulrasyid’s death.