New Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar vows to return the streets to the people while making public safety and security his top priority will be tested not be mere words but by factual success in reducing increasing crime in the country. Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar also faces an additional challenge to disprove negative public perception that he is politicising the police force for BN by now focusing on arresting criminals and not PR leaders.
Public safety was a general election issue with the people expressing concern over rising cases of snatch thefts, wayside robberies and shootings despite claims that the crime index dipped 7.6% in 2012, with 153,811 cases recorded compared with 166,295 in 2011, a drop of 12,484 cases. With many victims from crimes no one believed the claims by the police or Home Minister Datuk Hishamudin Tun Hussein Onn of a decrease of 27% in the crime rate from 2009 to 2012, compared with a 33% increase between 2004 and 2008.
Unless Tan Sri Khalid shows results of his success in capturing criminals than dealing with political enemies of BN, Tan Sri Khalid may be an even worse IGP than his predecessor. I have a bad personal experience with Tan Sri Khalid, who attacked me publicly when he was Selangor Chief Police Officer for refusing to co-operate with the police for not wanting to record my police statement, even though I had had already done so. Even though Tan Sri Khalid admitted later he made a mistake, neither did he apologise nor withdraw his attack against me.
I hope Tan Sri Khalid will act more humbly in interacting with and listening to the public. After all we all make mistakes but what is more important is how we learn and deal with the mistakes made.
The Penang state government and DAP is willing to co-operate with the police to fight crime as this is too important an issue to be politicised. DAP proposes a 3-prong approach namely,
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increasing police personnel patrolling the streets by 100%,
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encourage community policing through voluntary patrols in their community by local residents such as Penang’s Pasukan Peronda Sukarela(PPS); and
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commitment to instal street lights and CCTVs, especially in crime hotspots to discourage and identify crime.
Let us make Malaysian streets, workplace, shops, recreation places, schools and homes safe for our women and children.