Viral video of homeless man kicked while sleeping reveals migrant worker’s nightmare in Malaysia
KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 29 — A viral video of a man being kicked and splashed with water while sleeping on a five-foot-way has sparked outrage and highlighted a story of shattered hopes.
For Safiudeen Pakkeer Mohamed, 39, this public humiliation was the cruel culmination of a Malaysian dream that had turned into a nightmare.
“If they would have only told me to leave, I would have gone quietly,” he told Free Malaysia Today.
“I was very weak, hungry, stressed, and depressed.”
Safiudeen arrived from Tamil Nadu in March of last year with a simple goal: to earn a living as a cook and lift his wife and two young sons out of poverty. But his dream quickly soured.
He claims his employer at a restaurant in Sri Gombak confiscated his passport upon arrival and began withholding his wages, sometimes for months at a time. Unable to send money home, his personal life crumbled.
“My wife refused to believe my tragic circumstances,” he said. “She even thought I had taken on another wife.”
Trapped without his documents and with his salary allegedly deducted for a work permit he never saw, he was told he would have to pay RM3,000 for an airfare home he could not afford. After months of this, he stopped going to work.
With nowhere to go, Safiudeen was forced onto the streets. “I had no food, no roof over my head,” he recalled.
“Some told me that since I still had hands and legs, I could find work. But without a passport, no one wanted to hire me.”
He eventually found a spot outside a bank in Taman Maluri, Cheras, near a restaurant whose kind employees would give him food. It was there that the now-viral incident of him being kicked and splashed with water took place.
The video that captured his humiliation also led to his rescue. Good samaritan Tony Lian, who runs two shelters for the homeless, saw the clip and immediately took Safiudeen in.
Lian, known as “Uncle Tony,” is now working to get Safiudeen’s passport back and has issued a powerful plea to the public.
Despite the ordeal, Safiudeen is not asking for retribution.
“I want my passport. I just want to work,” he said.