KLANG: Due to their link with missing Indian businessman A. Muthuraja, the two lawyer brothers allegedly behind Datuk Sosilawati Lawiya’s murder have been making news in India.
Besides highlighting their friendship with Muthuraja, some papers have also speculated that they may be responsible for other murders in Malaysia.
The Hindustan Times had mentioned several unsolved murders such as that of lawyers R. Thinakaran Raman, 37, S.P. Annamalai, 59, Chew Sien Chee, 39, S. Pathmanathan, 29, and Triptipal Singh, 60. All the lawyers had been practising in Penang and were murdered between 1992 and 2009.
The article followed Penang police chief Deputy Comm Datuk Ayub Yaakob’s statement on Sept 14 that a special committee would take another look at unsolved cases of murdered lawyers in the state.
Based on the Penang cases, some Indian publications had gone to the extent of saying the brothers were on a killing spree since 1992.
This would make the elder brother just 23 and the younger sibling 20 years old at the time.
In another development, several family friends of the lawyer brothers said they were not as rich as they were made out to be by the media.
“The elder brother was not doing well and faced financial problems,” said a friend, adding that the family found it difficult to pay lawyers to represent them.
Police said they have picked up yet another suspect involved in extorting money from Muthuraja’s family, adding that his family had paid two groups about RM90,000 in total in exchange for his freedom.
Muthuraja was reported to have gone missing on Jan 18 after coming to Malaysia to meet the lawyer brothers.
Some parties had told Muthuraja’s family that he was detained for trafficking ketamine into the country and would be freed if payment of a stipulated amount was made.
