Assault on doctor: Police won’t apologise, says IGP


KUALA LUMPUR: The nation’s top cop said police will not apologise for assaulting a doctor who they mistook for a robbery suspect because he fled despite being ordered to stay put.

In defending his men’s actions, Khalid Abu Bakar said that during the raid by an elite police team on a food stall near a hospital, they had instructed everyone to gather around and stay put.

However, he explained one of the suspects and the doctor took off and police assumed that the doctor was one of the robbers.

“I think you all know that if you do no wrong, you will not run.

“I regret what happened, but we will not apologise.
We were just carrying out our duty,” he told reporters at the police training centre here.

On Oct 12, Dr Thanenran Renganathan, of Serdang Hospital’s cardiology department, was reported to have been kicked to the ground and handcuffed by members of an elite police unit seeking suspected criminals at the food stalls outside the hospital.

Thanenran, who suffered light injuries, believed that the balaclava-clad armed men were robbers.

He also claimed that the policemen did not have any identification or even a police logo on their gear.

Even the pleas of a senior doctor, who came to the scene of the arrest and vouched for the young doctor, failed to move the police to release him.

Instead, the elite police team took the doctor to the nearby Sri Serdang police station for interrogation.

The doctor later claimed that he was detained for hours and questioned if he had links to the robbery gang.

His father, who happens to be a policeman attached to a district police headquarters in Kuala Lumpur, eventually came to Sri Serdang and helped release the young doctor on police bail at 3am.

The doctor later made a police report on the arrest and alleged assault by the elite police team at the hospital grounds and the detention at the Sri Serdang police station.