Gory Death - Who Is To Blame?

Today a colleague sent me pictures of a man who was killed at a Petronas Station in Gunung Lang, Ipoh in Nov 08. His name was Ustaz Mohammad Khairuddin Mohamed Isa and he had just started work there as a part-time clerk 4 days before his death.

3 Indian men were charged recently with allegedly causing his death on 11 Dec 08 while a fourth Indian man is still at large. After allegedly slashing him with parangs, they left him to die while they looted the station of RM1000. The pictures were horrific - there was so much blood everywhere and his white shirt was completely soaked with blood. There were 5 pictures in the email. They started off with the most 'easy to take' (if there is such a thing) a shot of the scene from afar and slowly, the series moved in to show his face from the left and then his face from the right. His nose seemed split into two or was gone and his right eye was completely sealed shut (am unsure if it was from swelling or just that it was bludgeoned and cut til there was just a mush of flesh pulp. The worst of all, was the pic from the right - a slice of his face near the top of his head was just …sort of…hanging. Since it was all bloody, you can't really differentiate the parts of his skull or flesh, or brain matter but you can see the hanging sliver.

It's not the awful scene that prompts me to write. I just cannot imagine that men can do this to their fellow man. And all for RM1000! How does one feel, what goes through one's head when you lift your arm - knowing full well it is armed with a parang or cleaver or something equally damaging - and bring it down with full force on another human being??? Does your humanity and conscience fly out the window? This man had 6 kids and a wife. He was working for the extra money to support his further studies and 4 men, chose one morning to end his life. The captured Indian men were young - 2 were only 22 and 1 was 32. What gave them the right???? What made them so brave? Ustaz Khairuddin was someone loved and respected - he was someone's son, someone's husband, someone's dad!

I'm sorry to say but I don't think violence on tv ruined them and I don't think childhood abuse marred their souls - I think parents need to take a hell of a lot more responsibility for how their kids turn out - 10% perhaps is nature - if he has a violent personality - that's 'unchangeable' but his parents had the SOLE responsibility of bringing him up right. Bringing a child up right means he doesn't go out robbing, stealing and killing others or little animals. Maybe I'm not a parent yet and I do not know the perils of parenthood - but by George, if I can't do at least a decent job of it, I should NOT START!

I pray that Ustaz Khairuddin's family never saw or see the photographs. No family deserves a nightmare like this. (I hope they don't trawl the internet and come across this post!) I think losing a family member is terrible enough but to know how they died (like Daniel Pearl's widow who watched his death/murder video so that she would be able to answer any questions her child had in the future) would be torture. I think it would play in your mind forever and you'd relive the pain a 1000 times over!

The (alleged) ingrates will be in court on Jan 13 2009. I think a just punishment for any crime of this sort is to slowly slice off piece by piece of the guilty party's flesh day by day and let them slowly rot, bleed to death. Death by hanging and even death by electric chair is too uncreative for the multitude of ways people think up to kill others.

Please God - make them stop!