A stalwart of the British and Malayan police service remembered

Mathew in his younger days. — Photo provided

I FELT it important to pay tribute to 104-year-old KT Mathew of the Malaysian police who died in Kerala, India, on Sept 21. Mathew, while serving the British Military Police in Malaya in the early 1940s, bluntly rejected the order by Japanese occupying forces to serve the Liberation Army along the Thailand-Burma border during WWII. While being escorted out on a country road for a certain execution, he seized an opportunity to make a dramatic escape into the jungle. He surfaced only three years later, after the Japanese surrender in 1945.

While in hiding, we can surmise that with his expertise, Mathew may have aided the resistance forces (part of the famous Force 136) behind Japanese lines. He continued to serve the British police and later went back to his native state of Kerala. After a break, he returned to Malaya and saw service as a civilian of the Malayan Police (in the Finance Department, specifically) till the 1960s.