Saturday July 12, 2008

PI Bala - little man, big blast

COMMENT BY BARADAN KUPPUSAMAY

The former policeman is a small fry caught in the eye of a raging political storm and the Hindraf movement.

FORMER Special Branch detective Balasubramaniam Perumal left the police force in a cloud and despite early success as a private investigator had recently struggled in his business, relatives, friends and former colleagues say.

“He was a man of few words,” says friend Raja Sundram Pillay, 43.

Bala, as he is fondly called, left the force some years back after an incident involving his service revolver, his former colleagues said. It is unclear what the issue was but he resigned.

As a private investigator, Bala mostly collected evidence for divorce cases and started at RM50 an hour.

Mostly apolitical, Bala had an awakening after the Hindraf rally. He attended out of curiosity, and was immediately hooked to the cause, his friends said.

Raja first met Bala at the Jalan Duta court complex in January when the habeas corpus application of the five Hindraf leaders held under the ISA was being heard.

“That’s where I first met him and we hit off immediately. He did not talk much but was a gem of a guy,” says Raja, a marketing trainer for Amway Malaysia.

“Bala was a strong supporter of Hindraf and agreed with the grievances they raised but he was only that – a supporter,” says Raja. “He never pushed any political agenda but donated to and supported the cause strongly.

“There were about a dozen of us. We were all strangers who met either at the rally or during the many court cases involving the Hindraf leaders.

“After that we met often and discussed how to help ? we were all excited and hooked on politics,” adds Raja.

“All of us like Bala had been at the Nov 25 Hindraf rally.”

In the course of supporting Hindraf, Bala and friends developed links with PKR and the DAP. During the March 8 general election the group decided to split and actively campaign for different candidates from these parties.

Bala and a few friends ended up spending two weeks actively campaigning for DAP leader A. Sivanesan, now a Perak state executive councillor, who was contesting in the Sungkai state seat.

“Bala and his group turned up on nomination day and offered their services for free,” says Sivanesan.

“He was a hard worker and a good organiser. He came across as someone sincere and dedicated. He even slept on the floor.

“He was there cheering on polling night when the results were announced,” says Sivanesan. “I owe him and his team a lot.”

After retracting his explosive statutory declaration at a hotel here on Sunday, Bala disappeared with his wife and three children aged nine, 10 and 11.

All his friends are still in shock not only over the fact that Bala had overnight become a “big player” but also over the sudden retraction.

“He was hero one day and zero the next,” says another Hindraf friend.

Bala left hurriedly, leaving his Honda CRV parked in the porch of his house and two Rottweilers, named Monty and interestingly, Shaariibuu, locked in their cages.

“I called him on Sunday morning after reading the newspapers and he sounded like a hounded man,” says A. Thanaletchumi, a friend from Sungkai.

“He was so reluctant to speak.”

As a private investigator, friends say Bala was earning enough to buy a new Honda CRV, a second-hand Proton Saga for his wife and a big bike for himself and extensively renovated his house in Rawang, but strangely his business began to dry up after he testified at the Altantuya Shaariibuu murder trial last year.

His friends don’t know why but by March Bala was “very nearly broke” and made the rounds at law firms looking for investigative jobs.

“He asked me to put the word out that he needed jobs,” says a lawyer who declined to be named.

“I recommended him to my colleagues. I don’t know what jobs he got.”

In April, despite his financial situation, Bala stood for and was elected chairman of the Rawang Tamil School’s Parent- Teacher Association.

“He was very proud of it and was full of plans to raise money to add more classrooms as the school was crowded with over 1,000 students,” says a teacher friend.

On June 28, Bala took his family to Sungkai for a 15-table election victory dinner with Sivanesan.

“He paid for one table and enjoyed himself with his family and a few close friends,” says Sivanesan.

“He was very happy and did not show or give any inkling of the dramatic revelations he was to make on July 1.”

Bala seemed normal to all his close friends right up to the explosive press conference with PKR de facto leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.

“On Friday I heard rumours of a bombshell event involving Bala.

“I sent him an SMS text enquiring about it and he just replied: ‘Read Anwar’s website’.

“We are all in a state of shock,” says Raja. “Only Bala can clear the air.”