Photographer in the line of fire

PETALING JAYA: It was on a lonely road along Jalan Raja Alang in Kuala Lumpur that former The Star photographer Abdullah Subir was assigned to cover a shooting spree on Oct 19,1987.

Prebet Adam Jaafar had gone on a rampage in Chow Kit the night before which left one dead and several others injured.

Abdullah and reporter Zulkefli Talib were among the journalists on the scene as police cordoned off the area where Adam was holed up and evading capture.

Separated from his colleague, Abdullah walked alone on the deserted road as he contemplated how to get photos for his assignment.

Infamous incident: Abdullah (left) was one of two photographers who got a good picture of Adam during the rampage.

“I walked to the end of the road not knowing what to do. When I turned around, I saw two or three policemen and a civilian.

“The civilian was saying that he had seen the suspect in a vehicle. I immediately perked up and followed them at a distance along the street, ” he said.

Suddenly, the police officers and civilian disappeared and Abdullah wondered what had happened.

“That’s when I spotted someone holding an M16 assault rifle and ducking behind a closed burger stall.

“It was him (Adam). He was about 100m away from me but I hadn’t noticed him as I was focused on following the policemen and civilian.

“My first thought when I saw him was that I had to ‘shoot’ him first, ” he said.

Abdullah, who was 25 then, recalled walking quietly towards the gunman and taking a picture of him but barely two minutes later, Adam fired several shots.

“He started shooting at random. I think there may have been some policemen in the area, but I couldn’t see them.

“I heard the ‘rat-tat-tat’ sound of the gun and felt scared. I quickly ran behind a parked van for shelter, ” he said.

One of the shop owners there spotted Abdullah and called out to him to take refuge in his bakery.

“He locked the door after me. I asked him to let me go out, but he kept warning me that I might get shot.

“I couldn’t do anything about that, though I felt happy because I had gotten the shot already, ” he said, noting that he was one of two photographers who managed to get a good picture of the incident.

Abdullah, now 59, said he was fortunate to have a golden photo opportunity land right in front of him.

“I got lucky. I was in the right place at the right time. I didn’t panic until he started shooting.

“As someone in the press line, my first thought was that I wanted to get the scoop, ” he said.

His photo of the mass shooter squatting behind the stall was published on the front page of The Star the next day, one of the most iconic shots of the tense drama that gripped the country.

While hiding out in the bakery, Abdullah said he saw several policemen running along the street but it was clear that Adam was no longer in the vicinity.

The soldier had made his way to a restaurant in the nearby Wisma Sabarudin where he held out for about two and a half hours and took at least 17 shots at the police.

At 3.35pm, about 16 hours after the shooting began on Oct 18, Adam surrendered tearfully to Brig-Jen Abdul Ghani Mauludin.

Brig-Jen Abdul Ghani spent almost half an hour talking to Adam before the private allowed him to walk up to the first floor of the four-storey building, which was surrounded by more than 300 policemen and soldiers.

Although the motivations behind Adam’s rampage have been speculated on for years, he said in a book, Konfesi Prebet Adam, in 2016 that he had witnessed the death of his younger sister when he was 11, and had been harassed by his seniors in the army.

During Adam’s trial, psychiatrist Tan Sri Dr M. Mahadevan explained how Adam’s childhood trauma, head injuries and brutal abuse in camp had affected his mental state.

Adam, the eldest of nine siblings, passed away on Monday in Penang Hospital at the age of 57 following a lung infection.

His sister Hawa, 56, confirmed that he died at 9am while receiving treatment.

“Before this, my brother was healthy except for the occasional fever.

“But last week, he was admitted to the hospital and found to have a lung infection, ” she said yesterday.

She said his remains were buried at the Datuk Keramat Muslim Cemetery after zohor prayers on Tuesday.

In George Town, Arzat Jaafar, 40, a brother of Adam, urged the public not to tarnish his late brother and their family’s name.

“My brother was accused of so many things in the past and our family has endured this pain for over 30 years, ” he said.