The Inspector-General of Police and the Home Minister cannot blow hot and cold but must be consistent whether Malaysia is a safe country or not.

The IGP and the Home Minister cannot on the one hand claim that Malaysia is a safe country with crime rate decreasing by 26.8% since the launch of the Government Transformation Programme (GTP) in 2009, and ranked the safest and most peaceful country in South-East Asia according to the Global Peace Index, but suddenly attribute the recent spike of violent crimes to the abolition of the Emergency Ordinance (EO) in 2011 which put nearly 2,000 suspected hardened criminals back on the streets.

If the release of the 2,000 suspected hardened criminals under EO in September 2011 was responsible for the spike in crimes, why is this not shown in the crime statistics of the police, which instead claimed that there had been a reduction of overall street crime and index crime by 41.3% and 7.6% respectively in 2012 as compared to 2011?

Or did the leaders of the violent and organised crime syndicates only suddenly become active after Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s declaration of “war against crime” a month after the 13th general elections – causing a worsening of crime and the fear of crime when for the first time Malaysians feel unsafe eating out with the public spate of armed robberies of owners and customers at mamak stalls and restaurants?

Less than a year ago, the then Home Minister, Datuk Seri Hishammuddin strenuously refuted assumptions that increased crime was due to the release of the EO inmates.

He said that “despite media reports of ex-convicts being involved in crime, to me the number is not at a worrying level”.

Was Hishammuddin right when he said this last July or was he misleading the Malaysian public?

Last year, the public were assured that the police were keeping tabs on the 1,473 released detainees under the Emergency Ordinance and Restricted Residence Ordinance to help to find them jobs and ensure that they would not return to their bad habits.

What is the outcome of this programme or was it just empty talk which were never carried out by the police in all the states in the country?

If the police want full public co-operation in the battle against crime,it should take the Malaysian public into their confidence and share these information with them.