In his daily press conference, the senior minister heading the security cluster said remaining roadblocks were only to check for unapproved interstate travel, which is still prohibited.

“As I said before the police will not focus on roadblocks because after the CMCO, the focus is not on movement because it has been relaxed. The only restriction is interstate travel. That is not allowed. What is allowed is movements between districts (in a state) and so on.

“There have been so many reasons and excuses given by the public to leave their homes. It is unlikely that the police can restrict individuals from leaving their homes. So, their focus is the compliance with the SOP.

“Therefore, the police have established a special operations task force to monitor and enforce the SOP throughout the country,” said Ismail Sabri adding that the 10 pm travel ban has also been lifted.

The task force will involve 14 government agencies including the police, the military, the Civil Defence Force (APM), the Immigration Department, the National Security Council (NSC), the Malaysia Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA), the People’s Volunteer Corp (Rela), Road Transport Department (JPJ) and related ministries, among others.

Local councils have also been included to assist the federal authorities in managing the new CMCO SOP at the district level.

The defence minister added that the police will employ the approach from the first phase of MCO, which is to advise the public to adhere to the regulations.

However, this will escalate to issuing warnings if non-compliance persists, before moving to arrests and prosecution for chronic offenders.

Earlier, Ismail Sabri congratulated and thanked Malaysians for successfully following the new SOP on the first day of CMCO yesterday.

He noted that many business premises are following the government’s instructions in screening their customers’ temperatures and by providing sanitisers.

He also lauded the public’s discipline and self-regulation in maintaining social distancing and wearing their face masks.