MELAKA, March 17 — Police acted within the provisions of the Emergency (Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases) (Amendment) Ordinance 2021 when they issued a RM10,000 compound to a teenager in Melaka for violating the Covid-19 standard operating procedure (SOP), said state deputy police chief Datuk Shahrul Lalli Masduki.

He said no one should manipulate the issue and insinuate that police had acted harshly against the 17-year-old schoolboy.

“The SOP to curb the spread of Covid-19 has been disseminated widely to the public through the mass media and other forms of communication, both to the young and old.

“So, it would not be fair to blame the police and claim that we are cruel and intolerant because we take action based on the set SOP. There is no excuse for individuals to claim ignorance if they were issued compounds,” he told reporters after the Melaka state-level ‘One Mosque One Policeman’ initiative security briefing here today.

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He was commenting on a news portal report about the Form Five student who was compounded for failing to register his details before entering a grocery shop in Batu Berendam to purchase some paracetamol for his mother on Sunday.

He said 21 individuals, aged 17 to 53, were slapped with a RM10,000 compound each for various types of SOP violation in Melaka between March 12 and yesterday.

“Forty per cent of them were issued compounds for not wearing face masks, 30 per cent for not scanning the MySejahtera app or registering their personal details and another 30 per cent for other violations, including not practising physical distancing,” he said.

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In other developments, he said cases of stealing from donation boxes at mosques made up 14 per cent, or 29 cases, of the total property crime index for the theft and break-in category last year. — Bernama