Community News Desk: Malaysian police yesterday suspended a cop for arbitrarily detaining a Bangladeshi journalist in Malaysia and allegedly handing him over to a gang that tortured him.
Malaysian police chief Datuk Allaudeen Abdul Majid revealed the information to reporters, reports Bernama, the national news agency of Malaysia.
Majid said three police officers were involved in the incident and similar actions against the other two are on the cards.
During the briefing, Majid said the three officers were from the Special Branch, an intelligence agency attached to the Royal Malaysia Police.
The Bangladeshi journalist, a former broadcast journalist of NTV in Dhaka, said that he was detained on November 7, 2023.
“Three policemen in civil clothes showed up at my house around midnight. Two of the cops were in the car, while one came to my house. He said that a police report has been filed against me and that I would need to go with him,” said the journalist who requested anonymity for fear of reprisal.
The journalist lives in Putrajaya.
He was driven around for about one and half hours and taken to a forested area in Shah Alam, the capital of the state of Selangor.
“There was a house in the woods. I was handed over to a group of Indian and Bangladeshi men. There were two Bangladeshis there,” he said, adding that the gang were related to the labour trafficking syndicate that operates between Bangladesh and Malaysia.
The journalist said he was caned, beaten up and his arm was slashed with a knife. He was held there for three days.
“They demanded ransom. I got in touch with my nephew and asked him to transfer fifty thousand ringgits to the captors. They alerted the police,” he described.
The police supposedly conducted a raid in the area, and the captors, upon getting wind of the raid, fled the house along with him, the journalist described. He was dropped off in front of a bank in the area.
“I went to the nearest police station and filed a report,” he said.
The journalist said that he was targeted for reporting on human trafficking.
Sufi Abdullahil Maruf, first secretary of the press wing at Bangladesh High Commission in Kuala Lumpur, confirmed the matter.
However, he said the victim has not reported to the embassy, nor has the Malaysian police shared with them the names and details of the cops and the captors.
“There is an investigation going on, and the Malaysian police will take departmental action,” he said.
