The Malay Mail Online – 1 hour 35 minutes agoKUALA LUMPUR, Nov 27 — The UK’s Scotland Yard refused today to divulge the identity of the 69-year-old Malaysian woman who was recently rescued from slavery in London, saying she was still “traumatised” by her 30-year captivity.
A spokesman from Scotland Yard would neither confirm nor deny the report by UK newspaper Daily Telegraph that quoted a retired teacher, Kamar Mautum, as saying that she believes the Malaysian victim — who was held with two other women in London by the leaders of a Communist collective for the past 30 years — is her sister named Siti Aishah.
“The woman is in the care of professionals and is traumatised by what has happened,” the spokesman told The Malay Mail Onlinevia email last night.
“We are not discussing the identity of the victims...We will not be going into detail around our contact with other agencies in the case,” the spokesman added, when asked if the Metropolitan Police will allow Putrajaya access to the Malaysian victim to assist her.
The Malaysian victim was one of three women rescued from their two alleged captors — named as India-born Aravindan Balakrishnan and his Tanzanian-Indian wife Chandra Pattni — in a flat in Brixton, south London, on October 25. The other two victims are a 57-year-old Irish woman and a 30-year-old Briton.
Police said the three women were brainwashed and had reported being beaten, but did not appear to have been sexually abused.
Kamar was reported by the Daily Telegraph as saying that Siti Aishah had studied at one of Malaysia’s most elite schools, eventually winning a Commonwealth scholarship to study surveying in London.
Siti Aishah reportedly moved to Britain in 1968 with her fiancé, named Omar Munir by the Daily Telegraph, but was soon involved in extremist politics, eventually giving up everything to follow a Maoist doctrine. Kamar claimed Siti Aishah disappeared soon after.
Siti Aishah and her fiancé joined the organisation called Malaysian and Singaporean Students Forum (Mass) after arriving in London, during a time of increasing social unrest following the Vietnam War.
The political collective was renowned as one of the more extremist Maoist groups in London, and despite its small size was one of the leading bodies in many student protests with many of its supporters made of Malaysians fleeing home after a crackdown on radicals.
Its leaders were reported to be Balakrishnan and Pattni, who were arrested last Thursday for allegedly detaining the three women against their will, but have since been released on bail.
According to the Daily Telegraph, the Indian suspect was known to his followers as “Comrade Bala” and derisively in the left-wing circles as “Chairman Ara”, the short, plump and moustachioed Balakrishnan was said to be charismatic, bright, and respected by the extremists.
A Marxist history website said Balakrishnan, 73, was a high-ranking member of the Communist Party of England (Marxist-Leninist) but had been suspended in 1974 because of the “conspiratorial and splittist activities” of his “clique”.
The website also said Balakrishnan had been arrested in 1978 along with his wife during an attempt by police to shut down a Maoist centre in south London’s Brixton area.
With its membership at one time numbering 45 in addition to 200 supporters, the group’s popularity plummeted as Balakrishnan’s ideology morphed more extreme as he became more manipulative and controlling.
Siti Aishah eventually split with her fiancé, throwing her engagement ring into the River Thames, Kamar related, after a row over her loyalty to Balakrishnan.
A one-time member of the group also told the newspaper that Siti Aishah remained one of the few loyal supporters of Balakrishnan, and subsequently moved in permanently with the Marxist cell.
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