The Pudu jail was built on the site of a former Chinese burial ground. During world war 2 the Japanese occupation forces incarcerated many allied prisoners of war there. The history of the pudu jail itself is very brutal and dark. In June 2010, the eastern wall of the Pudu Prison complex was destroyed to make way for a road widening project. According to the government, it’s an eye sore to have the Pudu jail structure located in the middle of Kuala Lumpur especially since its the capital state of Malaysia. It is the fastest growing metropolitan region in the country, in terms of population and economy.
There is not much room within the cell, just a stone bed and a small window that you can barely see anything. The jail cell door is extremely strong and heavy. It was made with Iron and other materials. It is impossible to break such a door if any prisoner happen to plan any escape in such a close confined Pudu Jail.
“We normally shout out loud that we are merely
trying to make a living and tell whatever that’s out there to leave us alone,”
he says.
Haji Aziz Haji Idris tells of an
encounter while on duty at one of the guard towers when he was still a young officer.
“It was shortly after midnight
and I was on night duty with another person when I saw an officer approaching.
As we had been trained, I banged my rifle on the floor and shouted out
‘Everything all right, sir!”
Aziz says the figure said nothing
but raised his hand, and then suddenly disappeared.
He also remembers one particular
bunk in the warder’s dormitory which everyone tried to avoid.
“Anyone who slept there would be
sure to feel an unseen force pressing down on his chest. They may try to shout
or move but will be helpless to do anything,” he says, adding that some would
rather sleep on the floor than use the bunk.
Abu Bakar also recalls a weird
phenomenon – a ball of fire the size of a football that suddenly appeared and
rolled out of sight.
“It happened every once in a
while, and in cycles. Everyone would be talking about it for a while,” he says.
But the scariest tale is that of
a recurring apparition of a woman. Aziz believes it was the ghost of a woman
who was hanged there.
“She had tried to kill herself
previously by slitting her throat. She survived but before she was fully
recovered, the execution order came,” he says.
“She was brought to the execution
chamber and hanged – but because of the injury, her head was literally torn
off. It was a gruesome death and that is the ghost that many people have seen.”
He recalls an encounter with this
apparition.
“I was on duty at Block D, where
death row is located, and directly above the execution chamber is a huge anchor
stone.
“Out of the corner of my eye I
saw a figure sitting on this stone. Malays believe ghosts’ feet do not touch
the ground, and when I bent over to look, the figure disappeared,” he says.
But a fellow officer’s encounter
was even more shocking.
“Once, a police officer was
interviewing prisoners and it was getting late. However, he said that he could
interview one more, and I went down to bring another one.
“As he was filling in some forms
he saw a figure sitting down. Thinking it was another prisoner he looked up,
only to see a headless woman with blood flowing down her chest. The officer ran
down the stairs as fast as he could,” he says.
Aziz believes Pudu Prison is a
very “dirty” place and in some places is a giant graveyard.
“During World War II, the British
buried Japanese soldiers there, and when the Japanese took over, they buried
the British there.
“The ghosts here are real,” says
Aziz.
