AUG 27 — I was driving home on Monday when I saw a couple of policemen directing traffic at a small intersection in my neighbourhood. One of them was wearing a kevlar vest and had a Heckler & Koch MP5 (I presume) slung over his shoulder.
For a brief moment I was surprised but I figured out what it was before my imagination went into overdrive.
Ops Cantas Khas is ongoing, according to the papers.Nearly 1,000 boys in blue are taking on the underworld which has been making headlines recently. And apparently they’re doing well so far.
According to Bukit Aman, over the past 10 days or so more than 1,000 people have been arrested in Selangor, Penang, Negri Sembilan, Kuala Lumpur and Johor. The police say that most of them are gang members, that weapons and stolen vehicles have been seized and that half the arrests are thanks to public tip-offs.
I find this encouraging. After the shootings and other reports that have surfaced on crime and the underworld recently, it’s comforting to know that the law is not dead in Malaysia.
It’s comforting to know that our boys in blue are taking action against these public enemies. As I drove past I wished the policemen well.
But then I got home, and reading the news, I found that a couple of off-duty policemen were exposed as part-time snatch thieves.
Apparently, last month a brave good Samaritan, seeing two men on a motorcycle snatching a woman’s necklace, immediately rammed his car into the motorcycle. One of the thieves fled, but the other thief eventually pulled out a knife and attacked the man, robbing him too before fleeing.
But the thieves had to leave the motorcycle because it was pinned under the car’s front wheels. It was later found to belong to a police station but had been fitted with false registration numbers.
And when making his report, the two thieves were brought before the man and he identified them as the snatch thieves. The man was later informed that the two thieves were actually policemen.
Imagine that. They were policemen, tasked with upholding law and order. Entrusted to keep us safe. Yet in their spare time, they were the very criminals they were supposed to fight. And even used police equipment in the process.
In other words, these two were indirectly taxpayer-funded criminals when not donning the uniform.
It’s terrible. Policemen moonlighting as criminals? Authorities are working with a trust deficit as it is.
What I also find disturbing is that the good Samaritan, more than two weeks after identifying the men at the police station, was called again to an identification parade where he identified the same two men as the thieves.
Didn’t he already do so the first time? What action was taken against the two policemen after the first identification parade?
It is also not clear from the news report whether the two part-time snatch thieves were placed under arrest between the first and second identification parade. Were they left free in the intervening period? I hope not.
One should think that transgressions by members of the police force, such as in this case, would merit harsher action and treated with greater urgency. Compared to criminals who choose the dark path, they were given a trust and betrayed it.
And betrayal of public trust is not something to be taken lightly.
So good job on the war against the underworld, Bukit Aman, keep it up. But I hope weeding out the black sheep in the force is high up on your urgent to-do list as well.
And with more conviction when you do so, please.
* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
