THE harrowing account of S Rajeswari, who arrived at the hospital soaked from the downpour only to be told, hours later, that her husband was dead, underscores yet again the disturbing opacity surrounding deaths in police custody.
Her husband, M Manisegaran, was alive and heading home at 8.20pm. Within a span of a few hours, he was detained, transported by ambulance, and declared dead on arrival.
And at every stage, the police withheld information from his wife. This is not confusion; it is obstruction.
What followed is a textbook example of why Malaysians no longer trust police narratives.
Rajeswari saw visible injuries: broken teeth, chest marks, and blood in his eyes.
Yet when she demanded answers, she was fed a carousel of contradictory explanations ranging from a heart attack, fungal infection, drug use, to fluid in the lungs.
Even CPR was cited as the cause of injuries, despite ambulance personnel and the emergency room doctor confirming that no CPR was performed.
When a grieving widow receives three different causes of death in one sitting, credibility evaporates.
This case does not stand alone. According to the Enforcement Agency Integrity Commission (EAIC), 430 people died in police custody between 2011 and 2021.
That number should have triggered a national alarm, systemic reform, and an independent mechanism with the power to investigate and prosecute.
Instead, Malaysians continue to endure recycled excuses and hollow assurances that “investigations are ongoing.”
Manisegaran’s death is yet another entry in a long, grim list and one more family left to fight for answers on their own.
Deepens public mistrust
The police’s insistence on investigating themselves only deepens public mistrust.
Internal units, standard operating procedures, and opaque assurances cannot replace true accountability.
When the same institution accused of abuse also controls the evidence, the narrative, and the timeline, justice becomes impossible.
Rajeswari’s difficulty even at acquiring basic documents, including a police confirmation letter for insurance claims, shows how the system is designed to exhaust families into silence rather than deliver truth.
Malaysia’s longstanding refusal to establish an independent oversight body, such as the long-promised IPCMC, has enabled this culture of impunity to flourish.
We are now seeing the consequences: grieving widows left without answers, children forced into sudden poverty, and families spending months, sometimes years, chasing reports that should have been provided immediately.
If the government is sincere about preventing deaths in custody, then it must empower an external commission with real investigative and prosecutorial authority.
Rajeswari’s plea to the home minister should not be necessary.
No widow should have to beg for transparency, beg for reports, beg for someone, anyone, to explain why her husband walked into a police station alive and never walked out.
Her children deserve the truth. Malaysia deserves the truth.
A fully independent, transparent investigation into Manisegaran’s death is not only overdue but is the bare minimum required to restore even a shred of public confidence in the police force.– December 4, 2025
Charles Santiago is a DAP member and a three-term MP of Klang