Bloody days fighting the communists
Sheridan Mahavera (interviewer)
Sixty-seven-year-old Rahimah Ketot lives with her husband, Zainal Abidin Omar, in Kampung Majidee Baru.
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| PASSION FOR POLITICS: Rahimah Ketot became active in politics as soon as she was eligible to vote. She is seen here (right) with several members of the Pas muslimat wing, including Datin Sakinah Syed Juned, the late wife of former party president Datuk Mohamed Asri Muda. |
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| AS IT STANDS TODAY: The reconstructed Bukit Kepong police station which will be turned into a museum. |
MY family does not originate from Johor. My parents were from Malacca but we came to Johor because my father was a policeman stationed at various outposts during the communist insurgency in the 1950s.
I settled down in Kampung Majidee Baru in 1978. It was then called Kampung Kupang after the bustling shellfish trade that took place along Sungai Pandan, which runs through the village.
At that time, building a house in the village was a challenge as the town council would come in and demolish any structure that was unoccupied because no one had titles for the land.
Even now, our homes hang on a tether and we can be forced out any time. We used to pay for TOLs (temporary occupation licences) for our property, but the state government later told us that we did not have to do so as it was going to issue us titles.
But this pledge has become another unfulfilled election promise that I have been hearing for the past decade.
Still, that uncertainty is nothing compared to what I had seen and gone through as a child following my father, Ketot Ahmad, as he battled communists in the jungles of northern Johor.
Some of my earliest memories are of the time he was stationed with 10 other policemen at Kundang Hulu station in a remote part of Muar. The wooden station would be attacked two or three times a month as the communists fired upon it from the dense jungles where they hid.
Life was nerve-racking because you had to dive and hug the floor every time you heard the gunshots. I could feel the zip of the bullets as they penetrated the walls and cut through the air above my head.
Sometimes, the communists would get so close to the station that they could lob grenades into the rooms. Once, they threw a grenade into our bedroom and it was just out of arm’s reach.
My heart stopped. We could not get up to grab it because they were still shooting at us so I just stared at it. Thankfully, it was a dud and did not detonate.
Once, some of the policemen out on patrol were ambushed. Everyone was killed except one man who buried himself in the mud. He dared not come out until about five hours after the attack.
My father and some of the other policemen found and brought back the bodies of their dead comrades. I still have this image of my father being drenched in the blood from one of the bodies he carried. It was that of a Chinese policeman who had his stomach cut open and his intestines yanked out.
The man’s face was unrecognisable because the communists had gouged out his eyes and his cheeks were smashed in.
This was more than 50 years ago and yet it is as if I saw that policeman’s body yesterday.
My father was even captured and he spent four months in a communist camp making biscuits.
Our family lost all hope of ever seeing him again until one day when he escaped from the camp. He just walked out of the jungle to the station, ragged and emaciated. He had been through hell and back.
My father faced death countless times during his work in those jungles. Yet, he somehow made it out alive.
I thought that that was his luckiest escape until the time we were transferred to another station on the banks of Sungai Muar.
It was 1950 and my siblings, my mother and I had returned to my mother’s village in Malacca for several months as she wanted to give birth in a safe place.
Some months after my younger brother was born, my father came to Malacca to get us and help us move back to the police station.
We got to the Sungai Muar jetty on the night of Feb 23 and were going to catch a ferry to the other side when one of the boatmen recognised us. He told us that the station had been attacked.
The next morning, we found out that the station my father had been posted to, the Bukit Kepong station, had been razed to the ground. Of the 21 policemen who defended the station, 17 had died in the attack.
And when my father retired from the force, he told his children: “Whatever you do, never become a policeman”.
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