Deceased Malay Indian's family accuses hospital for concealing cause of death

Petaling Jaya, Mar 7 (ANI): The family of A. Kugan, who died in police custody on January 20, has lodged a complaint against the Serdang Hospital and Dr Abdul Karim Tajuddin, for allegedly concealing the cause of his death in the first post-mortem report.

According to The Star, they filed a complaint against the hospital at the Petaling Jaya district police headquarters.

The second post-mortem report, which was conducted on the request of the family by pathologist Dr Prashant N. Samberkar from the University Malaya Medical Centre, stated that Kugan died from being repeatedly beaten.

The first post-mortem report had claimed that Kugan's death happened due to fluid in the lungs.

The USJ police authorities had arrested the 22-year-old Kugan on January 14 for suspected involvement in a car theft syndicate. The police had later recovered 19 stolen luxury cars.

Kugan died a few days later during police interrogation.

According to his family lawyer, N. Surendran, the first report missed several key observations and failed to ascertain a conclusive cause of death.

"From the second independent report, we were able to scientifically prove that the injuries on Kugan's body were the cause of death," said Surendran.

The lawyer also dismissed Serdang Hospital director Dr Mohd Norzi Ghazali's claims that a mob of 50 barged into the mortuary and tampered with Kugan's body.

"We have submitted evidence to Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Musa Hassan to prove that we were allowed in by staff members," he said, adding that since both autopsies were done after the alleged incident, they should have yielded the same results anyway. (ANI)