Families of three men shot in Malacca present a movement timeline claiming digital evidence contradicts police account of the incident
PETALING JAYA: The families of three men shot dead during a police operation at Durian Tunggal in Malacca on Nov 24 have presented a movement timeline which they claim contradicts the police account of the incident.
They cited a shared live-location, phone records and an audio recording that allegedly captured the actual chronology of events.
The victims – T. Poovaneswaran, 24, M. Puspanathan, 21, and G. Logeswaran, 29 – had travelled from Serdang to Malacca on Nov 23 to visit relatives before returning to Kuala Lumpur for an early-morning prayer gathering, according to their families.
theSun reached out to their legal representative Arun Dorasamy, who is working on the case with lawyer Rajesh Nagarajan.
Arun claimed the digital trail places the men on the northbound PLUS Highway about 5km after the Simpang Ampat exit and before the Linggi exit at a small semicircular emergency bay and not inside a plantation as stated by police.
“They drove all the way there and reached home at Taman Nuri Fasa Dua at 12.30am. They left the house at 12.57am because they were supposed to join a prayer in KL in the early morning.
“The live location was activated by Logeswaran and shared with his wife at 1.10am at Taman Kenari Jaya in Durian Tunggal. The call started at 1.17am and lasted 21 minutes and 12 seconds.
“But for the last 13 minutes and 53 seconds, when she realised someone was chasing them, she decided to start recording,” Arun said during a phone interview.
He said the call shows Logeswaran telling his wife that two unmarked cars were trying to stop them before the Ayer Keroh toll and that he did not know why the vehicles were giving chase.
She advised him to head to the nearest police station and he replied that the next exit was Simpang Ampat, before informing her he had already passed it.
According to Arun, the recording began after the car came to a stop due to overheating.
Soon after the vehicle stalled, the trio were surrounded by a group of men, preventing them from calling for breakdown assistance.
Arun added that forensic analysis of the audio identified the shooting sequence.
“The first shot was at 1.38am involving Puvaneswaran, the second at 1.39am involving Pushpanathan and the final at 1.40am involving Logeswaran. These times were extracted from the audio,” he said.
To corroborate the timeline, Arun said they appointed forensic specialist G. Venodthan of Thistlegorm Forensics, who analysed the 13-minute recording, extracted timestamps and compared them with the victims’ call logs and location data.
In a statement on Dec 3, Criminal Investigations Department director Datuk M. Kumar said the trio were shot after they allegedly attacked officers with a machete, injuring two policemen.
Police said the men were believed to be involved in a series of armed robberies linked to the Geng Durian Tunggal, with initial investigations identifying cases in Malacca, Negeri Sembilan and Selangor.
Malacca CID initially opened an investigation under Section 307 of the Penal Code before Bukit Aman formed a special task force to review the incident.
Police previously told the media that one of the men had 39 criminal and drug-related records while another had 12, with the group suspected of causing losses exceeding RM1.3 million.
