But if they believe this true, then the gangs are sorely mistaken. Only 10 per cent of the 6,000-strong police force in the state is on leave for the holidays, Mazlan said, while the rest are on full alert to investigate these incidents.

“These criminals will stop at nothing but maybe they don’t know that we are now on to them and that for us, there is no such thing as ‘holiday’ during Hari Raya,” SAC Mazlan said.

He told the Malay Mail that some of the shootings are possibly related to gang-rivalry, adding that they may also involve former Emergency Ordinance (EO) detainees back on the streets since the law was repealed in 2011.

“Based on the modus operandi of all three incidents, we believe they were all hired killers,” he said.

The three separate shootings, one of which was fatal, bring the total number of shooting incidents in the state to 19 cases this year.

In the first incident, a bungalow along Jalan Utama was shot at ten times in the early hours yesterday by an unidentified gunman, shattering a window but nobody was injured.

The house owner had earlier received a note demanding that he deposit an undisclosed sum of money into a bank account and the shooting was believed to be a warning to him.

At about 11.15am the same day, a 37-year-old former convicted drug dealer, K.Veerappan, was shot to death in his car at a traffic light junction at Anson Road.

In the third incident, at around midnight today, a 43-year-old club bouncer, Chong Peng Meng, was shot at seven times and injured on his thigh outside a night club at Datuk Keramat here.

Chong was admitted to the Penang Hospital for the injury.

The police are now investigating if all three cases are gang related.

In April, the police in Penang had set up a special task force to investigate shooting and murder cases in the state.

The police are also investigating if such incidents may be linked to the repeal of the EO.

The police and Home Ministry have previously blamed the rash of shootings and violent crimes nationwide on the release of detainees once held without trial under the now-repealed EO, and are angling for the return of such powers.

Today, Mazlan said the masterminds of these gangs are seasoned criminals who were able to recruit new members to carry out their gang’s activities, even from behind bars.

He then said they are in the midst of compiling information on the masterminds and that it was just a matter of time before they are caught.