Many Malaysians must be asking whether the Inspector-General of Police, Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar has completely lost his sense of priorities in setting up a special sedition unit called D5 for him to twitter instructions to the police officers attached to the unit to investigate and harass Pakatan Rakyat leaders and NGO activists while overlooking the real big national and international threat of Islamic State (IS) extending its tentacles in the country to vulnerable Malaysians, including 14-year-old girls?

Neither Parliament nor the country had been informed that sedition crimes have become so serious and ubiquitous that the Police have deemed it necessary to set up a special unit called D5 with special police officers who can and must respond immediately to the IGP’s twitter commands to act against PR leaders and NGO activists on sedition and whole variety of other speech crimes.

Undoubtedly, Khalid has made a name for himself in the international fraternity of No. 1 policemen in the world, for he must be the first head of police in a country to set up a special unit on sedition, as if Malaysians have just set a new world record as the most seditious people in the world!

At a time when the IGP’s eye must be unfailingly focused on the new real crime and threat not only to Malaysia and the world – the rise of Islamic State with its siren appeal to Malaysian Muslims for a Muslim Caliphate stretching beyond national borders and space – Khalid’s focus is fixed in the wrong direction.

This has caused him to set up D5 and arrogating to himself the supreme task of roaming the cyberspace so that he could tweet directives to D5 police officers as to who are the PR leaders and NGO activists to harass and investigate, and undoubtedly, laying down a deadline when the D5 officers have to comply to report to him as to how they had carried out their instructions.

As a result, with the IGP’s eyes off the ball of the threat of Islamic State, the Malaysian police have failed to give due and proper attention and priority to the extent that even a 14 year old school girl from Johore could be influenced to attempt to join the IS terrorists in Syria and Iraq.

What is worse was the Home Minister, Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi’s recent shocking and questionable disclosure of a Islamic State plot to kidnap wealthy Malaysian Chinese for ransom and to stage bank robberies in the country to fund their terrorist activities.

Zahid may think that such revelation of the escalation of the threat by Islamic State in Malaysia will be powerful arguments to drum up support for tough provisions in the government’s anti-terrorist laws which is to be tabled in Parliament next month, except he had overlooked antoher important point – that the escalation of the threat by Islamic State in Malaysia over the months is proof of his failure to nip in the bud the threat of Islamic State in Malaysia, which reflects very badly on him as Home Minister.

The threat of Islamic State has become even greater over the months to not only lure Malaysian Muslim youths and even 14-year-old girls to join them in their international terrorist activities in Syria and Iraq, but to able to operate their cells in the country as to plot the kidnap of Malaysian Chinese towkays and to stage bank robberies.

What type of a Home Minister and IGP do we have?

It bespeaks of a police force which is not up to the task of eliminating the threat of Islamic State inside Malaysia, not to mention outside the country.

Has IGP got a special unit to fight the Islamic State threat in Malaysia and has he ever tweeted action to keep the threat of Islamic State in check, like his ceaseless tweets to D5 police officers to investigate and harass PR leaders and NGO activists?
There has been a spate of police arrests and investigations whether under sedition or other speech crime laws, where the police have acted completely out of character from their past behavior where the police officers were invariably very civil, genteel and correct in the manner they conducted themselves.

Under the first five Prime Ministers and the whole host of previous IGPs before Khalid, there were never instances like the three cops gate-crashing into the Perak Pakatan Rakyat Chinese New Year Open House showing utter disrespect and insensitivity to diverse cultures and customs in a plural society to serve a police notice on DAP Perak State Chairman and MP for Taiping Nga Kor Ming to give a police statement in Kuala Lumpur, or forcing Nga to travel 250 km from Ipoh to Bukit Aman to record a statement the next day, when the statement could have been taken in Ipoh itself?

Why have the police officers acted so uncharacteristically rude, disrespectful and insensitive? Why the need to flaunt such power, which is actually a gross abuse of power!

My guess is that all this is because of Khalid and his D5 sedition unit he had set up and his obsession with PR leaders and NGO activists, wanting the D5 officers to submit their investigation reports by arbitrary deadlines fixed by the IGP on pain of insubordination.
The IGP is barking up a wrong tree.

The statements and speeches by PR leaders and NGO activists may upset or even by a stretch of imagination threaten the political security of the UMNO/BN leaders, but they do not in any manner threaten the security of the nation.

The IGP’s obsession should be with the growing threat of Islamic State in Malaysia and not the democratic exercise of the freedom of speech of PR leaders and NGO activists.

The IGP should get his priorities right or he would go down into history as the Malaysian “IGP with the Wrong Obsession”!

An IGP worth his salt must fight real criminals and not to turn patriotric and civic-minded Malaysians, whether PR leaders or NGO activists, into imagined enemies of the state and criminals.

Malaysians want an IGP who can fight real criminals, and not one busy creating imaginary “criminals”.

When will Khalid start focusing on the real criminals and the Islamic State, or is he influenced like the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak who had a secret infatuation with Islamic State which he accidentally made public at an Umno function last June?