A policeman’s work is never done
IT’S certainly not a good time to be a policeman. Even before the new Home Minister and the new Inspector-General of Police can get comfortable with their new chairs, the police are becoming the news – for all the wrong reasons.
Dorairaj Nadason, The Star
Two deaths in custody and three robberies involving relatives of VIPs, even the Inspector-General of Police himself, show that the police have their work cut out for them to gain the people’s trust.
IT’S certainly not a good time to be a policeman. Even before the new Home Minister and the new Inspector-General of Police can get comfortable with their new chairs, the police are becoming the news – for all the wrong reasons.
There have been two deaths in custody – both involving Indians. Given the history of the community and the police, that’s really bad news.
First, N. Dharmendran was murdered – and even the police accept the fact that he was battered to death in the lock-up.
How does that happen?
Isn’t a police lock-up a safe place to be? How much do we know of the Standard Operating Procedures of the police?
Most of us have only been to police stations to report snatch thefts or robberies, we would never know what the cops do with suspects kept in lock-ups.
Is it common for suspects to be beaten up? Do all and sundry help in the beating up? Or is the task delegated to one police officer? Or are they not supposed to beat up the suspects?
The conditions that led to Dharmendran’s death – there have been claims that his ears and legs were stapled – have raised many questions. He may have been a suspect in a shooting case and I have little sympathy for criminals, but wasn’t he still a suspect and not a convicted criminal?
After his death, four policemen were transferred to desk duties. Not suspended indefinitely, or arrested and remanded – just transferred to desk duties. Is that kid gloves or what?
And now comes news of another death in the lock-up. He may have been a drug dependent but Jamesh Ramesh was as much a human being as you and I. He was found dead in a lock-up in Penang, hours after being arrested.
I was in Penang, my hometown, when the news broke. And there was quite a buzz there about the number of people dying in lock-ups. It’s now seven this year alone.
Given the fact that a lawsuit by the family of another dead detainee, S. Kugan, against the former Selangor CPO is also coming to its climax, these current deaths certainly have jangled the nerves.
The Selangor CPO in that lawsuit is now the IGP.
Days after he took office as IGP, Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar’s relative was robbed. Armed men rushed into her house, tied up the children and walked off with some RM30,000 in loot.
According to reports, the home of a relative of Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin was also robbed. Not very comforting news, is it?
Now, another minister’s daughter has fallen victim to snatch thieves, losing RM8,000 to thieves while out shopping.
It’s not all bad news, though. These high-profile thefts may yet push the police to act tough, and to get the bad guys before they can even act.
The police are planning a crime prevention department, one that will get down to the ground and get cracking. Not investigating crimes, but preventing them, according to Khalid.
The details are sketchy at best, but the IGP has promised to get it to work as soon as possible, with a top-notch officer in charge.
Like so many others, he says crime in the country is more perception than fact. The statistics, he says, show that street crime is on the decline. There have been fewer cases each year.
Perception or deception, people see what they see.
The mushrooming of gated communities speaks for itself. People fear that crime is on the rise.
The Star ran a poll on policing just after the new IGP clocked in and one of the main things that Malaysians wanted to see were cops on the beat. And to have cops on bikes patrolling the streets as a warning to snatch thieves. To be able to see policemen more often than mat rempit. We have many of these bike squads now but, sadly, I have yet to see one in action.
In London, you probably would not be able to go on a 10-minute walk without seeing a policeman on his beat, or just standing there with his truncheon around the corner. And the sirens ring almost incessantly.
In Paris, all you need to do is walk on one of those cobbled streets, and you will likely have a cop with a shrill whistle on your tail, telling you to get off the road and onto the pavement.
The policemen, or security personnel, are almost everywhere. That’s not to say crime does not happen in these countries. It does.
But having the policemen – or security personnel – around at all times can help deter crimes.
And what better way to prevent crime than to deter it?
Over to you, Tan Sri Khalid.
> The writer, who can be contacted at raj@the star.com.my lives in a crime-prone area, where motorcycle thefts and snatch thefts occur frequently, even just across the road from the local police pondok.
