Two days ago, the media splashed the news that the police was finally on the verge of solving the horrendous Nurin Jazlin abduction-rape-murder crime, with reports that the police has obtained a seven-day remand order against a 31-year-old security guard who was detained in connection with the murder of eight-year-old Nurin Jazlin Jazimin last September.

Nurin was sexually abused by her assailant and killed, her body in a sports bag abandoned in Petaling Jaya, near the location where five-year-old girl Sharlinie Mohd Nashar went missing a week ago – another victim of the heinous crime of child abduction.

News report today that the security guard was released after three days of seven-day remand, as well as the release of another 43-year-old man detained last Saturday also in connection with Nurin’s murder, have further shaken public confidence in the competence and professionalism of the police force.

Recently, the police have proven itself very competent, diligent and successful in the arrest of peddlers of the Chua Soi Lek sex DVDs, which raises pertinent question as to the proper order of police priorities in fighting crime and creating an environment where Malaysians are assured of personal safety and property security.

After the shocking disappearance and abduction of Sharlinie and the fruitless search for her, despite personal pleas by the Prime Minister, Cabinet Ministers and even the Inspector-General of Police, there appears to be a CCTV-mania as if the installation of CCTVs can ensure a crime-free or low-crime society.

This is a great fallacy and evasion of government and police responsibility to fight crime with an efficient, professional world-class police force, for if CCTVs are so efficacious in fighting crime, then there is no need for any expansion and upgrading of the police force or increased allocations for the police apart from installing CCTVs.

Other countries have shown that CCTVs per se is no answer to endemic crime as there can be no substitute for an efficient, professional world-class police service, with the police highly visible in public places to fight and deter crime.

I am very disappointed that in the aftermath of the nation-wide shock of another heinous crime against a child, all attention had been focused on having more CCTVs instead of ensuring that Malaysia has an efficient, accountable, incorruptible, professional world-class police force to keep crime low.

Nobody in government, police or the ruling Barisan Nasional had referred to the Royal Police Commission and its 125 recommendations completed 32 months ago in May 2005 when Malaysia today would be a safer country with very lower crime rate, with Nurin and Sharlininie safe and happy with their family, if the Royal Police Commission Report and recommendations had been fully implemented.

The Royal Police Commission had proposed that the police focus on three core policing functions – to keep crime low, to eradicate corruption in the police force and to uphold human rights.

On all these three core policing functions, the police are on a worse footing today than when the Royal Police Commission was established four years ago.

Just as an example. Last week, the Prime Minister-cum-Internal Security Minister, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said he was “worried” about the rising crime index, as the number of serious crimes increased by 13.36 per cent nationwide last year, jumping from 44,016 cases in 2006 to 49,897 in 2007, with gang robbery without use of firearms galloping by more than 159 per cent.

Further study shows that the crime situation in Malaysia has reached crisis proportion, with endemic crime the order of the day in the four years of the Abdullah premiership, viz;

Violent Crime

Offences 2003 2007 +/- %

Total 22,790 49,897 27,107 119

Gang 1,920 7,067 5,147 268
Robbery
Without
Firearms

Rape 1,471 3,177 1,706 116

Thus, although serious crimes have shot up by 13.4 per cent last year as compared to the previous year, they have shot up by 119%, with gang robbery without firearms leaping by 268% and rape by 116% in the four years of Abdullah premiership from 2003 to 2007!

In the past four years, the incidence of rape had more than doubled from a daily average of four women raped a day in 2003 to 8.5 cases last year!

One important reason why Malaysia is facing a national crime crisis with the government and police losing control of the crime situation is because of the failure to implement the key recommendations of the Royal Police Commission in the past 32 months.

I dare say that if the key recommendations of the Royal Police Commission had been implemented diligently and professionally, Nurin and Sharlinie would not have been abducted and would have been safe with the family today.

We pray and hope that Sharlinie is safe and could be returned and reunited with her family. But let all Malaysians resolve that the Nurin and Sharlinie crimes are the final wake-up call to demand that Malaysians regain their two fundamental rights – to be free from crime and the fear of crime, for themselves and their loved ones.

As Parliamentary Opposition Leader, I will launch a series of public forums entitled “No more Nurins and Sharlinies as victims of crimes” throughout the country to mobilize public support for a nationwide “Good Cops, Safe Malaysia” campaign to make the streets, public places and privacy of homes safe again for Malaysians, visitors, tourists and investors.

In the first phase of the series, public forums will be held in Petaling Jaya, Kuala Lumpur, Ipoh, Penang, Seremban, Malacca and Johor Baru. I will invite leaders from political parties (both Barisan Nasional and Opposition parties), the Police, civil society leaders, NGOs and concerned individuals to the public forums to support the “Good Cops, Safe Malaysia” campaign.

(Media Conference statement in Ipoh on Thursday 17th Jan. 08)