By Liew Chin Tong
I am officially writing to the Inspector General of Police Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar to seek a meeting to discuss police priorities after he agreed to meet during tweet exchanges yesterday.
In response to a PDRM tweet which claims that all departments of the Police are geared towards fighting crime, I said in my tweets that
· (1) Special Branch doesn’t fight crime;
· (2) FRU can be a smaller unit than it is now;
· (3) Pasukan Gerakan Am (General Operations Force) should be deployed to handle street crime.
My tweets elicited responses from Tan Sri Khalid
Khalid Abu Bakar @KBAB51 11 Aug @LiewChinTong @PDRMsia @RangerKarl@citizen_yc @tonypua . YB, pl visit your local Pol Chief, he will update you on FRU, PGA and SB’s role.
Khalid Abu Bakar @KBAB51 11 Aug @KBAB51: All shd engage the local Pol leaders so that youre kept updated on our roles and not being misinformed.
His responses were less than polite. It is presumptuous for the IGP to assume that politicians and critics who do not agree with the current police priorities are ignorant.
Our informed views may differ from that of the current police leadership and their political masters, but our views should not be trivialised.
In fact, upon my election as MP for Kluang, one of the first things I did was to initiate a courtesy call to the district police. I met the OCPD of Kluang Asst Comm Abd Majid Mohd Ali and his team on 17th June 2013. The discussion was very pleasant and the district police team was genuinely dedicated to fight crime. But it is clear that the structural issues of the police cannot be resolved at the district level.
To fight crime, omnipresence of the police and quality of investigations are two most important elements. Yet there are just not enough police on the streets. Solutions to this are aplenty but the top police leadership is less than prepared to listen. For instance, more PGA personnel should be deployed to the streets and half of those in the Federal Reserve Unit can be tasked to fight crime.
And to ensure quality investigation we need a much stronger Criminal Investigation Department and not a bloated Special Branch to spy on politicians. The Special Branch has no relevance to a democracy.
Tan Sri Khalid replied as follows on twitter on my request to meet.
Khalid Abu Bakar @KBAB51 23h @LiewChinTong Sure YB, that shdnt be prob. We are open for constructive views. You can start with your local Pol Chief.@PDRMsia
I assume that this is an agreement to meet and I am following up with a formal letter to request for a meeting with him. We must all work together to address the escalating national crime conundrum.
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Photo credits to mynewshub.my
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