PI Bala to take a break after heart attack
The private investigator will resume his ceramah and campaign after concentrating on his health for at least a month.
Anisah Shukry, FMT
Private investigator P Balasubramaniam said today he would rest for at least a month following last week’s mild heart attack, putting the breaks on the opposition’s plans for his nationwide ceramah before the 13th general election.
Balasubramaniam told FMT he has been warded at the Sime Darby Medical Centre, Subang Jaya, since March 5, and will be discharged today.
However, he said he may still have to undergo major heart surgery.
“It was a sudden, mild attack, and the doctors told me that three of my vessels are blocked, so I may have to go for a major operation. This Friday the doctors will redo the tests on me and decide whether I have to undergo heart operation or just a stenting,” Balasubramaniam said today.
(A stenting is a procedure whereby a tiny tube is placed into an artery to hold it open.)
“Now they are allowing me to go back, do some exercise, they have given me some medicine. So for the time being, I am going to concentrate on my health, for at least a month. After that I will go back for ceramah.”
Balasubramaniam hit the headlines in 2008 when he made a statutory declaration (SD) linking Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak and wife Rosmah Mansor to Altantuya Shaariibu’s murder, only to retract the SD a day later. After fleeing the country, he claimed the retraction was made under duress and that he stood by his first SD.
Balasubramaniam returned to Malaysia late last month pledging to campaign for the opposition as well as give nationwide ceramah on Najib and Rosmah’s alleged role in Altantantuya’s murder – a move that could put a serious dent on the current Barisn Nasional administration.
But with the general election expected to be called during mid-April, it is now unlikely that Balasubramaniam will be able to continue on his ceramah circuit until after the polls are over.
Badrul Hisham Shaharin, the president of pro-PKR group Solidarity Anak Muda Malaysia, which is organising Balasubramaniam’s series of ceramah, had not ruled out the possibility that the private investigator was a victim of black magic.