Keep hands off sexual harassers, leave the job to cops, warns IGP

KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 8 — Inspector General of Police (IGP) Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar said today that blogger Wan Muhammad Azri Wan Deris is not above the law, although he assaulted a foreign worker allegedly for sexually harassing four women including his sisters.

The top cop said there are laws and authorities to handle matters related to “what’s wrong and right”, even as the blogger known as Papagomo urged the police to pay more attention to sexual harassment cases.

“No one can take law in their own hands and same rule applies for Papagomo.

“He should have lodged a report with the police and let us do our job because countries have laws and we must abide by them,” he told a press conference today.

Khalid was speaking to reporters after closing a training course to 50 participants on the danger of Islamic State militants activities.

In a Facebook post, Wan Azri, who is a former police officer, said he refused to lodge a police report into the matter as the case will only end up with no further action.

Wan Azri, the controversial blogger who has in the past faced police action for spreading unverified news became famous again when a video of him assaulting a foreign worker who allegedly harassed his two sisters and their friends went viral.

The video uploaded this week has since gone viral with over 1.2 million views and earned Wan Azri high praise from Internet users who labelled him a “gentleman” and a “protective” brother for seeking justice for the women.

Deputy Inspector General of Police (IGP) Datuk Seri Noor Rashid Ibrahim was then reported as saying that the police would investigate Wan Azri for taking the law into his own hands.

He had agreed that Wan Azri’s actions were seen as undermining the role of the police by and warned the public to not follow the blogger’s mistake.

Wan Azri shot to fame last year after he was arrested for spreading unverified information online linked to a bloody brawl at a local tech mall in Kuala Lumpur last June which left five people injured, three of whom were from Chinese media organisations.

More recently, the Court of Appeal in December ordered the former police officer to pay de facto opposition leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim RM800,000 in damages over blog posts he published several years ago under the name “Papagomo” which the latter claimed to damage his reputation and cause him and his family to suffer.