SHAH ALAM, July 30: The attack on an anti-crime activist and figure of the country’s financial institution by an armed killer should urge the Federal Government to increase the ratio of police officers to fight crime from 14.2 percent to 50 percent.
Chief Minister of Penang, Lim Guan Eng said that the police should be given the power to focus on fighting crime instead of spying on the movements of politicians.
He said, according to the statistics given by the Federal Government recently in the House of Representatives, only 14.2 percent of the total 112,583 members are assigned to combat crime.
The Criminal Investigation Department has 10,150 members (9 percent), the Narcotics Crime Investigation Department – 4,224 members (3.8 percent) and the Commercial Crimes Investigation Department – 1,663 (1.4 percent).
Guan Eng said that the Ministry of Internal Affairs declined to disclose the number of officers assigned to the Special Branch.
“It is unacceptable that only 9 percent of police officers are directly involved in fighting crime in the streets.
“In fact, including members of the Narcotics and Commercial Crime Investigation Departments, the figure is only 14.2 percent.
“The number of police involved in fighting crime should not be 14.2 percent but must be at least be 50 percent.
“In other words, there should be at least 56,000 uniformed police officers patrolling the streets and not 16,037 police officers only,” he said in a press statement today.
Yesterday, the founder of Arab Malaysia, Hussain Ahmad Najadi was shot dead in a parking lot at Jalan Raja Chulan by Arab Founder Malaysia yesterday, Hussain Ahmad Najadi shot dead in a car park at Jalan Raja Chulan by a man, when he and his wife were believed to walk out of a Chinese temple Kuan Yin.
Last Saturday, the Chairman of the anti-crime NGO, Malaysian Crime Watch Task Force (MyWatch), Sri Sanjeevan Ramakrishnan was seriously wounded after being shot by a pillion rider of a motorcycle at Jempol, Negeri Sembilan.