Mat lajak deaths: Mum of teen killed in crash wants to move on

In her thoughts: Shabariah holding her son Mohamad Azhar’s shirts, which have been kept neatly folded in a cupboard at her home in Permas Jaya. — THOMAS YONG/The Star

JOHOR BARU: The bed is made, like someone is going to sleep in it later in the night, and the boy’s clothes are folded neatly in the cupboard.

But no one will be sleeping here and the clothes will not be worn.

They belong to Mohamad Azhar Amir, who was 16 when he and seven other mat lajak riders were killed in a crash in the middle of the night in 2017.

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The clothes only come out of the cupboard when his mother Shabariah Yusoff misses him.

“Mohamad Azhar was the closest to me and the most ‘manja’ (pampered) of all my children,” said the single mother of nine.

“Before Hari Raya each year, he used to accompany me when I go grocery shopping and was my helper when I baked festive cookies.

“After his death, I stopped making cookies and no longer cook because when I make his favourite asam pedas dish, I am reminded of him,” she said, adding that she was down in the dumps in the first three years.

However, now that the driver involved in the crash that killed the mat lajak teenagers is in jail, she wants to move on, and is appealing to the public to stop criticising their families.

“The court decision has given my family closure after all these years.

“Since the accident in 2017, my family and the families of the other victims have been receiving a lot of flak from the public, especially netizens, for letting our children go out cycling in the middle of the night.

“I understand that the woman driver has also received a lot of public criticism.

“I hope the public can respect the High Court’s decision,” she said when met at her home in Permas Jaya here yesterday.

She said after Mohamad Azhar’s death, her other children would not allow her to look at social media, which she said was filled with negative comments about the victims’ families.

“As a mother who lost her child, I was in pain – those who criticised me do not know how it feels to be in my shoes,” she said.

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On Wednesday, High Court judge Justice Abu Bakar Katar sentenced Sam Ke Ting, 27, to six years in jail and fined her RM6,000 for reckless driving, which resulted in the deaths in Jalan Lingkaran Dalam here at 3.20am on Feb 18, 2017.

He ruled that the Magistrate’s Court, which had twice freed her earlier, had erred in accepting her defence.

He also refused her bail and ordered the clerk to be sent to prison immediately.

The High Court said that not knowing there would be basikal lajak, a common term for modified bicycles, activity at the time of the incident was not an excuse to drive dangerously, which resulted in the death of the teenagers.

Abu Bakar also ordered that Sam be deprived of a driving licence for at least three years after the end of her jail sentence and for the conviction to be recorded in her licence subsequently.

In addition to Mohamad Azhar, the other seven teenagers were Mohamad Azrie Danish Zulkefli, 14; Muhamad Shahrul Izzwan Azzuraimie, 14; Muhammad Firdauz Danish Mohd Azhar, 16; Fauzan Halmijan, 13; Muhammad Harith Iskandar Abdullah, 14; Muhammad Shahrul Nizam Marudin, 14; and Haizad Kasrin, 16.

Shabariah now wants to move on.

“With encouragement from my elder sister in Kelantan and my other children, I am slowly beginning to accept my son’s death and I plan to stop dwelling on the past,” she said.