Higher Education Minister should set up a special unit to ensure safe and secure environment for students in all our colleges and educational institutions with the co-operation of  the Police and the institutions

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Media Statement
by Lim Kit Siang  
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(Parliment, Wednesday) :  Are our students in the various colleges and the educational institutions safe?

Are the Police, the Higher Education Ministry and the educational institutions concerned doing all that they possibly could to ensure that our students, whether local or from foreign countries, have a safe environment where the senseless criminal killing of 18-year-old Tunku Abdul Rahman (TAR) College student Lee Kean Yip from Ipoh, and the assault of another TAR student Phang Kar Wei, 23, within minutes in two separate snatch theft incidents in Wangsa Maju and Taman Melati in Kuala Lumpur last month, could never happen again?

I have received an email stating that MultiMedia University (MMU) students in Malacca are living in fear. As the Higher Education Minister, Datuk Mustapha Mohamad has set a good example of keeping tab on the blogosphere, I urge him to take immediate action in association with the Malacca Police and MMU to end the “reign of fear” over the MMU students as well as have a special unit to look into the personal safety and security of students in all colleges and educational institutions in the country.

I have also emailed to Mustapha.

The email “MMU Students Living in Fear” reads:

“I am a student from Multimedia University (MMU) Melaka Campus and the reason I write to you today is to voice out how most of the students here are feeling. I had been living around the campus (Bukit Beruang area) for 3 years. In these 3 years here I had never encountered anything more serious than getting my pants stolen. Right now, there seem to be a sharp increase in criminal activities around here. Just these two weeks there had been several cases of robbery and even a case of attempted rape.

“Just last 2 weeks there is a case of 2 girls nearly being dragged into a car. It failed but the car turned back and parked right in front of the girls and they started masturbating in front of them! Imagine the trauma the girls are in! There are also a few cases of students being robbed at knife point and also cases of girls getting molested while walking home. There are also a few cases of break-ins into students houses. We are living in fear uncle kit. We don’t know what to do. To add insult to injury, the police HQ is just a few hundred metres away from our campus.

“Must something really bad happens only the authorities will act? Must someone be sacrificed only the police will wake up? Does the authorities even know that it is not just TARC students are living in fear? Sometimes I feel that we as students are suffering in silence and there’s no one there to turn to when things like these happen. I do hope my letter to you will be published so that our voice could be heard.” 

(06/09/2006)