‘I won’t forgive the communists for killing my family’
MELAKA: I will never forgive the sins of the Three Stars communist insurgents who killed five members of my family in Parit Sulong, Batu Pahat, Johor, said senior citizen, Tik Sulong, 86, while holding the picture of her family on her lap.
Occasionally, Tik, who is more warmly known as ‘Mak Itam’ among Sungai Udang residents, adjusted her position on the wheelchair without letting go of the framed picture which was taken with her family when she was 15.
‘’They (communists) killed my mother, Temun Manang and four other of my family members without mercy although she begged them repeatedly.
“I can remember the faces of their killers until today,’’ she said and recited the Al-Fatihah chapter of the Quran for her kin who were killed at 6 am on June 10, 1945.
Her five family members, namely, her mother, Temun Manang, her two-year-old brother and a niece and nephew, who were still small, were cold-bloodedly killed by the communists before her eyes while her brother-in-law was found charred after the communists burned the house.
Narrating the dark event, Tik said that her family and herself had just performed their dawn prayers at home when the incident took place while her father Sulong Mohammad, the village headman, had gone to the paddy field to monitor the paddy harvest.
‘’At that time, mother was boiling water before preparing breakfast. Suddenly, there was a loud knocking on the door followed by the sounds of firearms and the shouts of villagers urging residents to run as the communists were attacking.
‘’I ran while pulling at mother’s and my two-and-a-half-year-old sibling’s hands through the back door,’’ she said.
Tik said that she, her mother and sibling ran to the fish pond 10 metres behind the house.
She said that she jumped into chest-deep water and hid herself in chest-deep water behind ‘Keladi’ (Colocasia esculenta) fronds growing abundantly in the pond.
But several insurgents armed with spears appeared before her mother and brother could jump into the pond and hide and they stabbed her mother’s stomach and private part.
‘’Despite suffering great pain from her injuries, my mother pleaded to the communists not to kill my brother but they stabbed them both repeatedly until they died,’’ she said.
At the same time, Tik said that her sister managed to escape but her three-year-old child whom she carried in a sarong hanging from her shoulder had fallen when the sarong became undone and was stabbed again and again by the communists.
Meanwhile, her brother-in-law and their eight-month-old daughter also perished when they were stabbed in the upper floor of their house as they could not escape in time when the communists came.
The communists then burned the house.
Tik said that the experience of witnessing for herself the sacred shouts of ‘Merdeka’ by Tunku Abdul Rahman at the field in Banda Hilir Melaka, on Feb 20, 1956 was the sweetest experience in her life after experiencing the difficulties of the trials and tribulation of the pre-independence period.
Bernama
