Ipoh Barat MP M Kulasegaran said an inquest would allow a coroner, as an independent party, to conduct a full examination of the shooting.

“It would provide an avenue for all parties to be heard and for all evidence to be considered, while ensuring that the public remains informed and confident in the integrity of the process,” he said in a statement.

Lawyers representing the families of the three men – M Puspanathan, 21, T Poovaneswaran, 24, and G Logeswaran, 29 – had demanded that Bukit Aman investigate their deaths, claiming that they were killed “execution-style”.

It was subsequently reported that Bukit Aman’s criminal investigation department had taken over the probe.

Melaka police initially investigated the Nov 24 incident for attempted murder under Section 307 of the Penal Code, after police chief Dzulkhairi Mukhtar claimed the trio were serial robbers who had attacked an officer with a parang.

Kulasegaran, who is also the deputy law and institutional reform minister, cited the case of Zara Qairina Mahathir in Sabah as an example of how an inquest can proceed concurrently with a police investigation.

“To uphold public confidence in the criminal justice system and the rule of law, and above all, to ensure that justice is done, the procedural steps clearly set out in the Criminal Procedure Code (CPC) must be strictly followed by authorities in considering the exercise of this avenue available in law.”

He said Section 329 of the CPC states that when the circumstances of a death raise a reasonable suspicion that an offence may have been committed, the police must forward their report into the said death to a magistrate.

The magistrate may then, under Section 333 of the CPC, hold an inquest into the death.

Kulasegaran said if the magistrate concludes that an inquest is unnecessary, the public prosecutor may still direct the magistrate to hold an inquiry into the cause and circumstances of the death, if there is reasonable suspicion that an offence may have been committed, under Section 339 of the CPC.

“Every effort must be made to ensure that each of these avenues is fully considered,” he said.

Yesterday, MIC deputy president M Saravanan called for an independent commission of inquiry to investigate the case, while the Malaysian Bar demaded “absolute transparency”, noting the conflicting narratives surrounding the incident.