Indian man kicked, humiliated for sleeping outside Malaysian bank: 'I just want to go home'

Safiudeen Pakkeer Mohamed, from India, was kicked and hosed down for sleeping outside a bank in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Updated on: Nov 30, 2025, 08:34:09 IST

By Sanya Jain

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A homeless man who was kicked, hosed down and humiliated for sleeping outside a bank in Malaysia has opened up about his ordeal. Safiudeen Pakkeer Mohamed, from India, became the subject of a viral video that shows him being attacked for the crime of sleeping outside a bank.

Safiudeen Pakkeer Mohamed, 39, was attacked and humiliated for sleeping outside an AmBank branch in Malaysia.

In a conversation with Malaysian news outlet FMT, Mohamed said that he wants to go back to India, but his passport and wages are being withheld by his former employer.

Homeless Indian man’s story

Safiudeen Pakkeer Mohamed left India in 2024 to work in Malaysia. The 39-year-old wanted to earn money to support his wife and two sons. In Malaysia, he hoped to earn enough to send money back home to his wife and kids in India.

In March 2024, Mohamed, from Tamil Nadu, started a job as a cook at a restaurant in Sri Gombak, Kuala Lumpur. However, things soon went downhill for the Indian man.

Mohamed told FMT that he had paid RM3,500 ( ₹75,500 approximately) for a work permit and RM1,200 ( ₹26,000) for healthcare to his employer.

However, soon after he started working, his employer began withholding his salary. Sometimes he did not receive his wages for months on end, leaving him unable to send money back home.

Mohamed said that his employer even withheld his passport so he could not go back to India. When he wanted to quit, he was not allowed to do so. This prompted him to stop going to work around six months ago.

Sleeping on the streets

With no money, passport, job or a place to stay, Mohamed was forced to sleep on the streets of Kuala Lumpur. He had been sleeping outside AmBank's Taman Maluri branch for a few days before he was humiliated, sprayed with water and asked to leave.

Footage that was widely circulated online last week shows a female security guard turning on a tap to hose down Mohamed, who was sitting on the sidewalk outside the bank. A middle-aged cobbler soon joined the female security guard – he was seen kicking Mohamed and asking him to leave.

(Also read: Indian-Malaysian CEO of American company with O-1 visa stopped by FBI at Miami airport)

Mohamed says he never imagined he would go viral for sleeping outside a bank.

“If they had only told me to leave, I would have gone quietly. I was very weak, hungry, stressed, and depressed,” he told FMT.

After the footage went viral, Tony Lian, who runs shelters for homeless people, has given refuge to Mohamed. According to an NST report, Lian said he plans to get Safiudeen's employer to return his passport. He also wants to raise funds to settle his debts

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sanya Jain
Sanya Jain is an Assistant Editor with Hindustan Times Digital. She has nearly a decade of experience in covering offbeat stories that speak to the everyday experience - from viral videos to human interest copies that spark conversation. Her interests stretch across business, pop culture, social media trends, entertainment and global affairs. Before joining Hindustan Times, Sanya spent two years with Moneycontrol and five years with NDTV. She holds an undergraduate degree in English literature from St Stephen’s College, Delhi, and a master’s in journalism from the Xavier Institute of Communications, Mumbai. Sanya has a sharp eye for spotting emerging trends and looking for newsworthy angles to elevate viral posts into meaningful narratives. She was the first one, for example, to cover Narayana Murthy’s remark on 70-hour work weeks that sparked a national conversation. She is equally at ease writing about business leaders as about the common man, about issues of national importance and memes that amuse social media. Sanya enjoys speaking with content creators, newsmakers and entrepreneurs to transform everyday moments into engaging, slice-of-life stories that resonate with readers. When she is not working, Sanya can be found curled up with a good book. Born and raised in Lucknow, she has spent the last several years in Delhi. She is deeply interested in animal welfare and now spends a lot of her time running after her destructive orange cat.Read More

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