DAP joins all Malaysians to condemn the killing of Police Corporal Raja Aizam Raja Mohd and the wounding of Cpl Mohd Aidil Mustafa by illegal foreigners in Klang early yesterday.
The killers should be brought to justice and punished with the full weight of the law brought to bear on the murderers.
DAP also sends the deepest condolences to the bereaved family and pray for swift recovery for Corpoal Mohd Aidil who has been warded at the Tengku Ampuan Rahimah Hospital in Klang with slash wounds to the head.
The killing of one police corporal and the wounding of another by illegal foreigners mark a new phase of the Malaysian security situation – not only ordinary Malaysians but even police do not feel safe in their own country!
A 100-strong crowd who attended the forum, “Time to Reform the Police Force”, at the Selangor-Kuala Lumpur Chinese Assembly Hall in Kuala Lumpur yesterday, agreed that the majority of Malaysians no longer felt safe, whether they lived in urban or rural areas.
But the security situation is actually even worse – when the police themselves do not feel safe while carrying out their ordinary duties to keep country and the population free from the fear of crime and safe from crime.
Why have the security situation in the country reached such a deplorable pass, caused by the police and the authorities closing their eyes for a long time to the exploding population of illegal foreigners who seem to be operating “a country within the country and a law within the Malaysian law” – creating a volcano awaiting eruption with grave and immense consequences to all Malaysians in the country!
I fully agree with a panellist at the forum, the Women’s Aid Organisation (WAO) executive director Ivy Josiah, who was a member of the Royal Police Commission formed by former Prime Minister, Tun Abdullah in 2004 to make recommendations to transform the Malaysian police into an efficient, professional world-class police service to accomplish three objectives: to keep crime low, to have zero-tolerance for corruption in the police service and to protect and promote human rights of Malaysians.
The Dzaiddin Royal Police Commission of Inquiry, of which she was a member, had made over 100 recommendation, the most important of which was the formation of the Independent Police Complaints and Misconduct Commission (IPCMC), but ten years after the RCI, public confidence in the efficiency, integrity and professionalism of the police have reached an all-time low and is now never lower in the nation’s police history of over half a century of independent nationhood!
Josiah suggested the formation of a parliamentary select committee which will travel around the country, listening to the rakyat’s various complaints against the police.
She said: “A parliamentary select committee should be set up and travel around the country, listening to the rakyat’s various complaints against the police.
“Perhaps if the public begins naming and shaming errant policemen, this will force Putrajaya to start listening and paying attention to the weaknesses within the force.”
Will the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak, the Home Minister, Datuk Seri Zahid Hamidi and the Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar support the establishment of such a Parliamentary Select Committee on Police and People’s Safety in the forthcoming Parliament beginning next week?
Will the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department in charge of parliamentary affairs, Datuk Seri Shahidan Kassim, raise this subject at the Cabinet meeting on Wednesday?
I will send a note to Shahidan before the Wednesday Cabinet meeting urging him to get the Cabinet green-light for the formation of a Parliamentary Select Committee on Police and the People’s Safety.
I call on all MPs whether in Pakatan Rakyat or Barisan Nasional to support the establishment of such a Parliamentary Select Committee to ensure that Malaysians have a reformed police force whose top-most priority is to ensure that Malaysians, tourists, investors – and equally important – the policemen and women themselves are safe in their own country from criminals and illegal foreigners so that the tragedy of the killing of a corporal and the wounding of another would be the last official police casualties in such circumstances to keep the country and Malaysians safe.
(Media Statement in Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday, March 5, 2014)