Contributed by Seira Sacha Binti Abu Bakar “We will not accept closure of this case until a satisfactory inquiry”, said Datuk Dominic Puthucheary. On 12 December 1948 , in a military operation against the communist insurgencies in then Malaya, a group of Scots Guardsmen shot dead 24 unarmed Chinese labourers in a rubber tapping village of Batang Kali . The village was then set on fire. To justify the killing, the British Government argued that the 24 Chinese civilians were communists attempting to escape and military force was necessary to stop them. 2 superficial investigations were conducted in 1949 and 1970 to look into the incident, but nothing came out of it. In Malaysia , a campaigning group who called themselves the Action Committee Condemning the Batang Kali Massacre (“ ACCBKM ”) was formed to press the case for the victim’s families. In March 2008, the group presented a petition to the British High Commission in Kuala Lumpur calling for acceptance of responsibili...