Police must explain their absence during Karpal's funeral - Lim

The Penang state government will study why police did not turn up for crowd control duties during the state funeral for DAP’s chairman Karpal Singh.

Penang chief minister Lim Guan Eng said police will have to explain why they were absent at Dewan Sri Pinang where Karpal’s casket was placed for the people to pay their last respects.

“The state government would conduct a post-mortem to determine the reasons behind the police not turning up as planned and work towards overcoming the weaknesses that may have caused any inconvenience to the public.,” he said in a press statement, Monday.

“The mammoth crowd was unexpected. We wish to apologise to all who came from far and near but did not have the opportunity to pay their last respects to Karpal Singh at Dewan Sri Pinang,” he added.

Lim thanked the 25,000 Malaysians who had turned up for the public funeral of the Bulit Gelugor member of Parliament.

He said the spontaneous send-off by 3,000 motorcyclists, who were mostly working class, who came on their own, it showed the affection for Karpal by ordinary Malaysians.

“We hope that the public can forgive and overlook any shortcomings during the public funeral. The police did not turn up as planned to conduct crowd control outside Dewan Sri Pinang,” he said.

Karpal had died on Thursday in a road accident near Tapah, Perak. His aide, Michael Cornelius who was also travelling with him also died.

Karpal, 73 was on his way from Kuala Lumpur to Penang for a court case when the accident occurred.

He is survived by wife Gurmit Kaur, five children and 11 grandchildren.