PETALING JAYA: The police have been ordered to carry out health screening of people taken in custody before they are placed in lockups.
Inspector-General of Police Acryl Sani Abdullah said the directive had been given to police officers and policemen to ensure a better procedure in handling detainees in lockups.
“PDRM (the Royal Malaysia Police) do not want such incidents (of death in a police lock-up) to occur but basically, the procedure has been improved lately,” he said at a special media conference at Bukit Aman today, Bernama reported.
“We view the matter seriously, hence more improvements will be made including health screening for the suspected individuals’ next of kin.”
Acryl Sani said police had also called for the involvement of various parties including the Enforcement Agency Integrity Commission to investigate any misconduct involving police personnel handling detainees in lockups.
The IGP’s comments come in the wake of a public hew and cry over the deaths of several people who had been detained by police.
Suhakam calls for medical teams at lockups
Separately, the national human rights commission, Suhakam, has called for medical teams to be stationed at police lockups. Suhakam also called for a review of the lock-up regulations.
In a statement this evening Suhakam said that the deaths of three relatively young and healthy men in just five weeks showed weaknesses in police procedures, and said it raised the possibility of torture and violence being used against those detained.
The three detainees who died were A Ganapathy on April 18, S Sivabalan on May 20 and Surendran Shanker on May 27.
Suhakam called for compliance with the law when holding citizens in detention. The police should investigate cases of alleged abuse of power and police misconduct and prosecute the police officers responsible.
Investigations should be carried out into alleged incidents of torture and ill-treatment of other suspects by police, and internal disciplinary proceedings and criminal action should be taken for violation of directives, including related court orders.
The commission said it was timely for the government to consider ratifying the UN convention against torture.-FMT