‘I offered him a place to stay and he started to cry’

Tony Lian with the homeless man, known only as Safiudween, outside a shelter the NGO founder runs. (Tony Lian’s pic)

PETALING JAYA: When Tony Lian, the founder of an NGO that helps the poor, came across a video of a homeless man being kicked and humiliated outside a bank, he felt sick to his stomach.

Lian was horrified at the degrading and inhumane treatment of the homeless man.

“You cannot treat another human being that way. Where is the compassion?” Lian, who runs Food4U, an NGO that feeds the homeless and poor every week, told FMT.

“He needs to be treated with dignity.”

The pensioner in his 70s, fondly known as “Uncle Tony”, knew he had to do something.

Lian, who also runs two small shelters for the homeless, set out on foot to look for the man and walked along the shops at Taman Maluri in Cheras, Kuala Lumpur. He checked every corner until he reached another bank, some 600m from the first bank where the man had been kicked and hosed with water.

It was there that he saw the man, who is in his late 30s, lying on the ground, emotionally drained.

“I offered him a place to stay and he started to cry.”

Lian said the man, whom he identified only as Safiudween, had recently lost his job as a waiter and had nowhere to go.

“He kept saying, ‘I am hungry, I am tired, I have no home.’”

At the homeless shelter, Lian said Safiudween was given a fresh pair of clothes and a meal.

“When he saw his new bed, he was overjoyed.”

A video of Safiudween being hosed down and kicked drew the ire of social media users.

The video, which has since gone viral, showed the man who had been sleeping on a walkway near the bank being sprayed with water by a guard.

Another man then kicked him, threw his belongings and splashed him with water again.

AmBank later apologised for the incident, adding that it was “deeply concerned and saddened” as no one deserved such treatment.

It also said the security guard seen in the clip was employed by an external security service provider appointed by the bank, while the second man was believed to be a cobbler who had been frustrated with the victim.

“Regardless, we expect all personnel representing our bank, including vendors and partners, to uphold the highest professional conduct,” it said.

Lian said that once Safiudween is back on his feet, he will help the latter look for a job.