Open Letter to YB Khairy

Sunday February 28, 2010

Duo face cohabitation charge

KUALA LUMPUR: A taxi driver who has been charged with abusing his girlfriend’s daughter to death will also be charged in the Syariah Court with cohabiting with the woman.

Police plan to refer the 28-year-old man and possibly the child’s 25-year-old mother to the Selangor Islamic Religious Council for further action.

Hulu Selangor deputy OCPD Deputy Supt Bakhtiar Rashid said initial investigations revealed that the unmarried couple had been in a relationship for six years.

Their relationship produced a child out of wedlock who is 18 months old now.

“The woman has yet to get a divorce from her husband, but they have been living like a married couple,” he told Bernama here yesterday.

Her husband has been an inmate at the Sungai Buloh Prison since 2006.

DSP Bakhtiar said the suspect had been remanded for seven days until March 4 and police would be applying for an extension.

He said the suspect had also tested positive for drug abuse.

Syafia Humairah Sahari, three, is believed to have been abused to death by the taxi driver at their home in Kampung Batu 30 in Ulu Yam Lama, Batang Kali, on Thursday.

Family members of the woman claimed the child’s body from the morgue at 1.30pm and buried the toddler at the Kuang Muslim cemetery in Sungai Buloh.

In Kuala Lumpur, Deputy Women, Family and Community Development Minister Datin Paduka Chew Mei Fun as saying that welfare officers would investigate the competency of the woman and her partner as parents before deciding whether to seek temporary custody of their 18-month-old child.

Dear YB,

I am pleased to report that the enemies and evildoers are right now scratching their head, thinking what has just hit them over the past 48 hours. Reports of my demise, as usual has been premature as they now finally figure out it was an elaborate plan to make them to engage the enemy directly.

Of course they will regroup, but I think its about time we ignore them. Really - their numbers are small, they preach to the converted and all they are good at is making a heck of a lot of noise.

As one of the world's premier derivative traders, I frequently encounter a whole lot of noise when analysing the markets. I have made a lot of money by ignoring the background noise and focusing on the real data. The biggest coup was to accurately predict Fannie Mae and Freedie Mac's implosion from USD 50 a share to nothing, when I shorted its common equity . Around that time, the market was still not factoring in the scale of the implosion. I also took a good profit trading Chicago Bridge Iron, buying up significant stakes in the holder of  ethylene pyrolysis when the stock was trading at $5 and change.

Its now $21.

Now its the time for you to do the same. To ignore the common names - Piggy, Parpu, Mantra and a couple of other minions. 

There are others who require your attention.

This story struck out because it crystallizes the situation facing a lot of people who seem to get a string of bad luck. The mother, for reasons best known to herself, got married to somebody who ended up in Prison, she then hooked up with a taxi driver, who intend is accused of abusing her own child to death.

This situation of hopelessness is repeated day in and day out. 

What people require really is a second chance.

There are thousands of other single mothers with children struggling to make a living, and really facing a very bleak future in a country which for all means and purposes, is very very rich. The issue is down to a sense of apathy.

Several months ago, Dnightcaller, decided that he will not subscribe to this notion that we as members of society are unable to solve problems. He contacted myself, and together with the support of a lot of people, including those who hate you - approximately RM 3,000 was raised for an orphaned child. 

As to what happened after that - I have no idea. And I am actually pissed about it - there is a duty to perhaps to do a follow up story, to find out what actually happened, is she better off or not.

We hope we get a good answer, but it is possible that we may get an answer we don't quiet like, yet it is our duty to report the truth. There is always a process of fine tuning.

If a group of bloggers - and this includes folk like Dnightcaller, Rocky, Apanama2020, Zorro,Dato Sak, Aspan Alias, etc,etc, some of whose identity is a closely guarded state secret can work this thing out, I think surely more can be done by the leader of the most important wing in national politics.

Its about time we drop this idea of balancing the right wing agenda vs. a liberal agenda because to be honest, each group has a point of view which makes it difficult to see the "correct way." After all - what is the end result? Either the right wing has its way, or the liberals have their way. 

Either way - nothing good is going to happen if a story like this can appear on national newspaper and all the Deputy Minister in charge of Women, Family and Community Development can do is to initiate an investigation.

The system is broken - but it can be fixed, either within the Government or via an NGO (eg. Yayasan Budi Penyanang).

Past attempts to do anything has proven to melepaskan batuk ditangga, because primarily people do not start with a plan. Ask your staff, what was done in the background to make sure B-S-R could achieve its target - there was a lot of planning. There was marketing. There was execution.

All we had to do was to appeal to the better senses of a whole gamut of "online personalities" and through their connection with their individual reader base, go on to elicit donation. 

That was our problem definition and our execution. We defined the problem in a manner in which there was a solution. Chew Mei Fun's angle that the only response to this is to initiate  further investigation is definitely not acceptable.

I leave it to you on your best response.

The least is to highlight this deficiency in your blog with your angle on how the state/public can offer a second chance programme, perhaps in combination with private sector, what kind of opportunities e.g. agriculture work, that can be given so that those who want a way out of a messy situation can find a way out.

Wenger J. Khairy