Press Statement by Parliamentary Opposition Leader, DAP Secretary-General and MP for Kota Melaka, Lim Kit Siang, in Petaling Jaya on Thursday, 27.9.1984
Lim Kit Siang writes to Datuk Musa Hitam to demand that the person or persons responsible for the death of Tee Kian Eng at the Pusat Serenti Tampin should be charged with murder
I have written today to the Acting Prime Minister and the Minister of Home Affairs, Datuk Musa Hitam, calling for the person or persons responsible for the death of tee Kian Eng to be charged with murder regardless of their rank at the Pusat Srenti Tampin.
Tee Kian Eng, 32, who was committed to the tampin Pusat Serenti by the Malacca Magistrate on Tuesday, 25th Sept. 1984, on the request of his father, Tee Kim Lwi, 58, was admitted to the Tampin General hospital less than seven hours after he arrived at the Pusat Serenti Tampin with critical injuries, transferred to the Seremban General Hospital, and died the next day at about 6 a.m. of ‘severe cerebral concussion’.
Tee Kim Lwi, the father, is particularly aggrieved, for he how holds himself responsible for his son’s death, although he wanted to do the best for his son to cure him of his drug addiction by having him rehabilitated at the Pusat Serenti Tampin.
It was because of this that on 13th Sept. 1984 he reported his son to the Pringgit Anti-Narcotic Unit at Malacca, and had his son sent to Pusat Serenti Tampin for examination. On 19th Sept. 1984, Kian Eng was brought to the Malacca Central Station police lock-up till 25th Sept. when he was produced before the magistrate at about 11 a.m. for a formal committal to the Pusat Serenti Tampin for rehabilitation.
When Tee Lim Lwi, his father and children saw Kian Eng on Tuesday morning at the magistrate’s court, they thought he would be beginning a new life on his committal to Pusat Serenti Tampin for rehabilitation. They never expected that they were in fact sending him to early death!
At about 9 p.m. the same Tuesday night, they were told by a Bukit Baru Kian Eng is in a critical condition in Seremban General Hospital, when they got to the Seremban Hospital just before midnight, they found Kian Eng fighting for his life, with hands broken and severe leg and head injuries. Kim Lwi was informed that his son died at about 6 a.m. the next morning on Sept. 26.
In my letter to Datuk Musa Hitam, I reffered to the Sept. 14 official opening of the Pusat Serenti Tampin by him, and the visit to the the centre. I was quite impressed by the Centre, and the admission by the Minister that at the early stages of the Pusat Serenti Tampin, owing to inexperience in establishing a one-stop agency to rehabilitee drug addicts, there had been weaknesses and defects which had been rectified.
But less than two weeks after the Official Opening of the Pusat Serenti Tampin, public confidence is greatly shaken by the death of Tee Kian Eng as his injuries are most gruesome.
I stressed in my letter to the Acting Prime Minister that I, as well as the public, support the establishment or drug rehabilitation centres which are necessary to combat the grave drug problem in Malaysia to restore the drug addicts to society as useful and productive citizens, but there can be no excuse for brutality, inhumanity, barbarity and murder in the guise of drug rehabitation.
I urged the Acting Prime Minister to order that the person or persons responsible for the death of Tee Kian Eng should be arrested and charged for murder, regardless of their rank in the Pusat Serenti Tampin, to ensure that there is the rule of law in Malaysia, even in the Pusat Serenti Tampin, and to restore public confidence in the Pusat Serenti Tampin.