Saturday, June 6, 2009

Of Malaysian gangs and gangbangs

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Manohara, prince may make up
By Lee Wei Lian, The Malaysian Insider

Datuk Kadar Shah Sulaiman, the man who helped Indonesian beauty Manohara Odelia Pinot escape her Kelantan prince, now says that a break is just what the couple need now and alluded to a possible reconciliation.

"A cooling-off period of a few weeks or months and they may fall back in love," Kadar Shah told The Malaysian Insider from Jakarta last night.

"You know these type of love affairs, how they are. And Manohara is still so young. She's a princess now and may miss palace life," said the Muar Umno branch chief.

He said, however, that if it still does not work out after a few months’ break, then the couple should divorce.

The marital spat between Tengku Temenggong Tengku Mohamad Fakhry Petra and the 17-year-old model has created a sensation in both Southeast Asian countries.

Manohara has claimed that she was physically and sexually abused while the Kelantan palace has insisted that it is a private matter between husband and wife.

Kadar Shah was the go-between the Kelantan palace and Manohara's family and claimed he was "given the blessing" of the palace to sort the matter out.

It took two months of planning and going back and forth before Manohara's dramatic escape in Singapore last Saturday.

Kadar Shah said he tried to work out a deal and get both sides to compromise and convince the prince to allow Manohara to meet her mother Daisy Fajarina.

The mother has been appearing on Indonesian TV shows alleging that Manohara had been abused since her marriage to the Kelantan prince last August.

When the Sultan of Kelantan sought medical treatment in Singapore, Tengku Fakhry and Manohara went to Singapore to visit him.

Kadar Shah also went to Singapore and arranged a lunch where he said he managed communicate to Manohara despite the presence of Tengku Fakhry's men.

"If you feel unhappy or unsafe, you have to korek (scratch) my hand when we shake hands.

"When we shook hands, she korek so hard, because you know, she has long finger nails," he recalled.

"Even when she went to the toilet, she was followed. However, before she left she left a note on a piece of tissue: 'I am not happy, please help me. I want to go home'.”

The tissue was shown by Kadar Shah on Indonesia TV.

"What I did was for the best for everybody," said the Umno man.
*************************************************

It appears like Datuk Kadar Shah was the ‘White Knight’ who came swooping down on his great steed to sweep the Indonesian damsel in distress off her feet. This is at least according to what The Malaysian Insider reported.

In case this name does not ring a bell, you may remember I mentioned him in my article ‘Shafee Abdullah: caught with his pants down’ (http://mt.m2day.org/2008/content/view/22540/84/) on 29 May 2009. This was what I wrote then:

Datuk Kadar related how he had gone to lawyer Shafee Abdullah’s office a few days earlier to discuss Jamaluddin Jarjis’s bottom pinching case in the Havana Club at KL Sentral. I think Datuk Kadar was involved because he had an interest in the establishment. Anyway, I was told Shafee wanted JJ to pay RM1 million as ‘settlement’ or else his scandal was going to explode.

And this was when Datuk Kadar saw that whiteboard with Anwar Ibrahim’s and my name on it and the police officers who were in the office discussing the Anwar Ibrahim Sodomy II case. And a few days later the whole sodomy thing exploded with Saiful’s ‘revelation’ that he had been sodomised, the PUSRAWI doctor’s examination that showed Saiful was still a virgin, and Najib’s denial and later his admission that he had met Saiful prior to the sodomy allegation. (Extract of that article).
*************************************************

Chronicles of Bentong Kali and Gang 08
The Malay Mail, Friday, June 5th, 2009

GANG 08 was formed in the 80s and grew to its present size in the early 90s according to sources. The gang received street credibility when P. Kalimuthu, better knows as Bentong Kali, who was shot dead by police in 1994, joined the gang in 1984. The gang was then heavily involved in extortion, kidnapping and violence.

It was learnt that the gang got its name “Gang 08” because it used to collect payments in multiples of eight. Last year, on Aug 8, 20 gang members, all students of a secondary school in Klang, organised a celebration. They had an 8kg cake in the form of the numbers zero and eight, and had the words “Villains SMK Raja Mahadi” on it.

The party was to be held in the school field but school authorities learnt of the gathering and alerted police, who increased patrols in the area. At noon, the students slipped out of their classes and gathered at a secluded part of the field. Gang members outside the school passed the cake through the fence.

Soft drinks were served and as they were “partying”, teachers and Parent-Teacher Association members broke up the gathering. The number eight portion of the cake had already been eaten. Three gang members and what was left of the cake were handed over to police. Gang 21 came into existence in the mid 90s.

It started after several gang members from different gangs had a fall out with their leaders and started Gang 21. The gang targets shopkeepers and small businesses to extort money. They operate in small groups to avoid being detected by the authorities.
*************************************************

I don’t know where The Malay Mail got their information from but the piece they published did not have the author’s name. Actually, the 08 gang was already famous back in the 1960s, long before May 13. The man who made it famous was Mervin Stewart or better known as ‘Serani Chai’.

I remember when I was surrounded by a group of burly Chinese one day in Pasar Road near Pudu. They said something to me in Chinese but I could not understand what it was. I only recognised the words ‘Serani Chai’.

My Chinese friend, Eddie Wong, who I was with quickly jumped in and said something and the Chinamen patted me on the back and smiled, then walked off. We then hightailed it out of there and after we had left Pasar Road a safe distance behind us my friend told me that they had mistook me for Serani Chai.

You see, Serani Chai was 08 and Pasar Road was 18 Immortals or Sap Pat Loh Hon. 08 and 18 Immortals were deadly enemies and if not for Eddie Wong that day I would not be here today to write this article. In those days, the pre-May 13 1960s, they just stab you or ‘chop’ you with a parang in broad daylight and no one would do a thing about it, not even the police.

In fact, I remember one gang clash where we chased some Long Fu Tong chaps in front of the Kuala Lumpur Railway Station and the police just stood there and watched. They did not do anything to stop the clash.

It happened as follows. My brother was attending a party at the IC office (which is now the Wilayah Persekutuan zakat office). I had come to fetch him but when he came downstairs a group of Long Fu Tong chaps surrounded him and beat him up. We managed to grab him and bundled him into the car and escaped. If not he would have been killed that night.

My brother was in quite bad shape so I dropped him off at the Railway Club in Brickfields -- which was about five minutes away. Then I went to Scott Road and fetched Richard (Gang 36) and Dennis Lourdes (Gang 08) who bundled some parangs into the car. We then drove back to the IC office and coincidentally we saw this group of about a dozen Long Fu Tong chaps who had beaten up my brother leaving the building.

It was quite funny really watching Richard and Dennis chasing a dozen gangsters down the road and the police just standing there and watching.

But that was how it was back in the 1960s. You always came into contact with street gangs -- unless you stayed home and never left your house. We were of course only teenagers then but in the 1960s almost all teenagers belonged to one gang or another. If you did not belong to any gang then you kena pau (pay protection money). And if you did not pay then you got beaten up by every gang on the street; as well as from the next street. So you paid and the gang you paid pau money to gave you protection. And when the rival gangs beat you up, as what would certainly happen, your gang avenged you.

There were many levels within the gang hierarchy. You paid pau money and got protection and this was the lowest level. Then you ‘jalan’ with the gang or became an active member. The next level up were the fighters (the gang army). The bosses were the ‘Tiger Generals’. At the very top of course would be the Taikos.

There were so many gangs that I can’t remember them all now. The 08 group also had Pat Long Fu (108). The 24 group had Sap Pat (38) Kau Lok Kau (969), Chap Pat Kau (789), Long Fu Tong (Tiger Dragon Gang), etc. Then there were the 18 Immortals, Siew Miew Fah, Gang 36, and many, many more.

The gang you joined depended on where you lived and so on. For me that made life very complicating. I lived in Bangsar, which was under Sap Pat. But Sap Pat was at war with Long Fu Tong and I had to pass their territory every day to go to school (that was Petaling Street). After school I visited my girlfriend (who is now my wife) at Jalan Thambi Abdullah in Brickfields, which was under 08.

I was practically a fugitive and had to move in the shadows without being seen. Once I was caught in Bangsar by the 969 boys and beaten up quite bad. Another time the 36 boys spotted me at the Railway Club and chased me with parangs. Yet, on another occasion, the 08 caught me in front of my girlfriend’s house when I visited her for Christmas. They surrounded my car and dragged my brother out and beat him silly.

It was dangerous times for teenagers back in the 1960s. You really didn’t know if you would be coming home for dinner. Richard was shot dead while playing Mahjong in Scott Road. Dennis was beaten dead with a baseball bat. Ravi was found dead in a river in Pahang. Moses just disappeared one day and we never heard from him again. Peter was found dead beside the road, allegedly a victim of a hit and run. And so on and so forth. I doubt many of my ‘street’ friends of the 1960s are still alive today. I heard Man Kuching, Mat Botak and Ahmad Chicago were killed as well.

Oh, maybe one did make it big time. This man, Man Brandy, went on to become a Minister (Founder of Mat Rempit). He used to sell ganja in front of the Kampong Baru mosque in the 1960s. I think he now calls himself Drs Suleiman. I suppose Man Brandy eventually realised that the real crime is not on the streets of Kampong Baru but in the corridors of power in Putrajaya.

I remember writing some time ago that the ‘good’ thing about May 13 is that the police cleaned up the streets soon after that and sent everyone to Pulau Jerejak. After that Chinese could go eat nasi lemak in Kampong Baru and Malays could eat Bakuteh in Jalan Pasar without getting stabbed or chopped with a parang. So there is some small ‘silver lining’ in May 13, if you really need to look for something positive in that dark period of Malaysian history.

And as for me? Well, I managed to survive the street gangs of the 1960s and now am pushing 60. But many of my friends suffered violent deaths. They lived by the sword and died by the sword. But the ‘good thing’ -- if there is anything good in street gangs -- is that I learned how to survive on the streets. Getting chased by a bunch of guys with parangs became ‘perkara biasa’. And avenging the beatings we got by chasing them with parangs was also ‘perkara biasa’. You think the police can frighten us when we faced worse than what the police could do to us?

Oh, and one more thing. Ganja was not illegal back in the 1960s. We could openly smoke it in front of the police. In fact, the police were the suppliers. I remember having dinner once with Syed Mokhtar, the Kuala Terengganu OCPD, at Taman Selera back in the 1970s and I pointed out the stall that sells ganja and he coolly replied that the stall was being run by the family of one of his police officers.

Things have of course changed a lot since the 1960s and 1970s. Today, I no longer charge at my enemies with parangs. I use a computer keyboard. And they use the Sedition Act, Internal Security Act, and whatnot, to get back at me.

Sigh….I really miss the parang days. Those days were less complicating and street fights were easier than the ones we engage in today. But I still had to move in the shadows then as I do today.

***************************************************************************************
And as for me? Well, I managed to survive the street gangs of the 1960s and now am pushing 60. But many of my friends suffered violent deaths. They lived by the sword and died by the sword. But the ‘good thing’ -- if there is anything good in street gangs -- is that I learned how to survive on the streets.

No comments:

Zahid's land corporation proposal is insidious, unfeasible

  One proposal announced by no less than Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi went relatively unnoticed at the recently concluded  Anwar...