KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 24 — Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi advised Deputy Minister P. Waythamoorty today to leave the Najib administration if the latter insists on being critical of the government’s action on crime.
The former co-founder of Indian rights group HINDRAF had spoken out against the killing of five alleged gang members in Penang on Monday that was part of a police crackdown against organised crime and gun violence.
“If you were a champion in an NGO, and now a member of the administration and want to make negative remarks about the government, then it is best you leave and rejoin the NGO,” the home minister (picture) was quoted as saying at the start of a forum on crime in Sunway today by news portal The Malaysian Insider.
Following the slaying of the purported gang members in Penang, Waythamoorthy had joined the families of the five men in disputing the police account of a shootout that led to the death of their deaths. Instead, they allege the men had been shot in their sleep.
On Thursday, Zahid had also issued a warning against Waythamoorthy, who was roped as deputy minister in by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak following Election 2013, to stop behaving like an activist.
In the Monday incident, police shot dead the five men in an ambush at an apartment unit on the 11th floor of a service apartment in Sungai Nibong, Penang.
Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar later linked the five men to 10 murder cases and two attempted murder cases in three different states- Penang, Kedah and Negeri Sembilan.
The police also recovered three pistols and a few rounds of ammunition from the apartment unit.
