"Police have referred the matter to Bukit Aman, and have received orders that the case be classified under Section 302 of the Penal Code for murder.

"An officer from Bukit Aman will be appointed to carry out further investigation into the matter," said Mohmad in a brief statement.

Funeral to be held today


Surendran said Dharmendran's family members are satisfied with the explanation given by the pathologist and will be claiming the body, with the funeral expected to be conducted later today.

"There will be no (further) post-mortem and the family and I are glad that the pathologist had made these important findings to prove the torture that Dharmendran had suffered.

"This is unlike the first post-mortem in the Kugan affair," he said.

It was reported that Dharmendran was arrested by police when he lodged a police report after being involved in a fight on May 11.

His wife and parents only knew of his arrest four days ago on May 19, and they visited Dharmendran at the police lock-up.

Dharmendran was supposed to have been released on bail yesterday.

However, the family was shocked when they received a call from an unidentified police officer informing them of Dharmendran's death and asked them to collect his body at HKL.

They were allowed to view the body yesterday afternoon and a post-mortem was performed soon after.

kugan ananthan funeral 230109In the 2009 case of Kugan, the 23-year-old died at the Taipan police station after he was arrested over a spate of alleged thefts of luxury cars in the area.

His cause of death was initially listed as "pulmonary oedema", or drowning, after a first post-mortem was conducted at the Serdang hospital.

Dissatisfied with the findings, his family pressed for a second post-mortem, which found the cause of death to be blunt force trauma.

Action was taken on the pathologist who performed the first post-mortem by the Malaysian Medical Association.

This resulted in an on-going legal suit by the family of the deceased against the police and the government.