September 8, 2025
KUALA LUMPUR – THE other day, as I was driving the 130km from Kota Kinabalu to Ranau town, I gained insight into the magnitude of the Zara Qairina Mahathir case in Sabah. During the three-hour journey I saw #JusticeForZara posters and banners on countless cars, buses, and lorries.
The day before I was in Kuala Lumpur, where I had several coffee meet-ups with regional intelligence officers and diplomats to chat about the Zara Qairina case and the deadly protests in Indonesia.
Let me give you a quick summary of the two incidents.
The Zara Qairina case centres on a 13-year-old girl who died on July 17, a day after she was found unconscious near her school dormitory in Papar, near Kota Kinabalu. The death is currently the subject of an inquest to determine the cause. Separately, five teenagers have been charged with bullying her.
Major protests erupted nationwide in Indonesia on Aug 25, sparked by public outrage over extravagant housing allowances for lawmakers and a rising cost of living. The unrest escalated after a young delivery motorbike rider was fatally struck by a police vehicle, leading to a wider wave of violence that resulted in multiple deaths and the burning of regional parliamentary buildings in the cities of Makassar, Pekalongan, and Cirebon.
The intelligence officers and diplomats I spoke to agreed that there were similarities between the Malaysian and Indonesian cases.
> Both were fuelled by widespread public outrage and demands for justice.
> Both were driven by a tragic death. The deaths of Zara Qairina and the delivery rider served as a powerful rallying point for public frustration.
> Both were amplified by social media. Social media platforms played a central role in both events, particularly in the spread of fake news.
They agreed that the protests in both countries began as organic grassroots movements. How-ever, they believe that “hidden hands” have hijacked the movements to weaponise them for hidden purposes.
This is how you create political warfare, they shared:
Step 1 – Create conflict whether it’s real or not; in the Zara Qairina case, rumours circulated that a VVIP was involved in closing the case prematurely.
Step 2 – Develop and scale up the conflict; organise gatherings to gain public sympathy. Create social media content and flood media platforms to escalate the issue.
Step 3 – The hidden hands take over and create a narrative that the public wants the government or VVIP to step down.
One of the diplomats shared a Jakarta Globe article, pointing out this passage: “Certain groups have been exploiting recent public demonstrations and hijacking their agenda once situations turned anarchistic, an analyst said.”
The Jakarta Globe reported that Prof Hermawan Sulistyo, of Bhayangkara University in Jakarta, believes that the scale of the violence during the recent protests, particularly the burning of public facilities, goes beyond the capabilities of student groups or other organisations. He suggested this level of anarchy points to the involvement of outside agitators, whom he referred to as “fellow travellers” or “hidden passengers”.
“These fellow travellers are not the ones who create the situation, but they take advantage once things heat up,” Prof Hermawan said.
According to him, these “hidden passengers” exploit issues circulating on the Internet, even though more than 50% of the information is false.
“The reports about arson and vandalism are actually used as opportunities to loot. There are even calls such as, ‘Let’s go to the house of X official or X celebrity’. The intensity has increased,” he concluded.
In Sabah, political leaders – I shall call them Datuk Seri X and Datuk Seri Y – are using the Zara Qairina movement to get back into a position of power in preparation for the upcoming state elections. Their campaign targets a VVIP in Sabah and aims to turn the polls into a referendum against him.
Arguably, the public became interested in the Zara Qairina case when her death was linked to the VVIP. It was a piece of fake news that was too juicy for people not to believe.
In Peninsular Malaysia, there is a concerted effort to link Zara Qairina to the Education and Home ministries, which currently have a trust deficit with the public. It seems the idea is to use the issue to bring down the Federal Government.
On Friday night, I had drinks with a Sabahan lawyer in a Kota Kinabalu pub.
“The death is tragic, but what is also bad is politicians like X, Y, and C who are exploiting it for their political gain,” he said, adding that some lawyers were behaving similarly.
“The true tragedy of the Zara case is that people have stopped believing in facts, they prefer the drama of social media and are hoping for a scandalous conclusion.”
From sipping coffee with intelligence officers and diplomats in KL to having a Blue Label on the rocks with a lawyer in a Kota Kinabalu pub, a sad, consistent truth became clear: The public’s demand for justice is an organic, powerful force – you can feel it on the road to Ranau, and in the passion of the Indonesian protesters. Yet in both Malaysia and Indonesia, legitimate demands are allegedly being hijacked and weaponised by hidden hands.