Cop cleared of hurting Kugan

January 28, 2011

Navendran was the sole officer charged over the death. file picPETALING JAYA, Jan 28 The Sessions Court here found police constable V. Navindran today not guilty of causing grievous hurt to A. Kugan when the latter was detained by the police two years ago.Navindran, 28, was charged under Section 331 of the Penal Code which provides for a maximum jail term of 10 years and a fine, upon conviction.He is accused for voluntarily causing grievous hurt to extract a confession from the 23-year-old Kugan, who died at the USJ police station lock-up on January 20, 2009.He had also pleaded not guilty to two alternative charges of causing hurt to Kugan under Section 330 of the Penal Code. Kugan had then been detained on suspicion of having been involved in car thefts.Kugans death sparked a nationwide uproar and reinforced the publics general lack of faith in the police force.Many critics have pointed out that Kugans death was one of the many custodial deaths in Malaysia, mostly involving Indians detained by police, which further alienated the community.Kugan died after being held for five days in police detention to aid investigations over the theft of luxury cars.The death was initially classified as sudden death and attributed to water in his lungs according, to an initial post-mortem report.However, the case was reclassified as murder following public outcry.A second post-mortem was conducted at the insistence of his family, and pictures from it released online indicated Kugan had suffered severe injuries on his body. This supported widespread belief that he was tortured while in police custody.The reluctance on the part of the police to allow a second post-mortem and the significant differences in the two reports, including descriptions of the extent of injuries and the actual cause of death, has also raised accusations of an attempted cover-up.Following Kugans death, 11 rank and file! policem en were transferred to desk duty at the Selangor police headquarters.