Hunt For 10,000 PPS Men
(NST) – PENANG police have extended their dragnet to haul the remaining members of the illegal Penang Voluntary Patrol Unit (PPS), said to be close to 10,000.
The statewide crackdown will make it the single largest arrest ever by the country’s law enforcement agency against an illegal organisation.
State police chief Datuk Abdul Rahim Hanafi said police would go door to door in its search.
“We have asked them to surrender. If they don’t, we will catch them. We will go by areas and look for each and everyone of them,” he said yesterday, adding the crackdown on the body came under Section 43 of the Societies Act, 1966, for failing to register with the Registrar of Societies (RoS).
Rahim revealed that among the PPS members detained after the Merdeka march-past, 11 had past criminal records, including one member who was a former Emergency Ordinance detainee involved in secret societies.
Six had previous convictions for attempted murder, robbery and thefts while four tested positive for drugs.
On Tuesday, Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar said PPS was an illegal organisation, with confirmation from the RoS that PPS was not recognised under the provisions of the Societies Act 1966.
Khalid had urged PPS to suspend all activities and seek clarification via legal channels but the group ignored the call, even taking part in Sunday’s state-level Merdeka march-past at the Esplanade.
This led to the arrests of 156 PPS members, including state Welfare, Caring Society and Environment Committee chairman Phee Boon Poh, who is in charge of PPS.
At press time, all 156 PPS members, including Phee, have been released on police bail.
Seri Delime assemblyman R.S.N Rayer, one of the 20-odd panel of lawyers representing the detained members, was arrested at 6pm yesterday and is still in police custody.
Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng had said that PPS was formed by the state government in 2011 to help with voluntary work and fighting crime.
However, there have been a number of instances where PPS members had been accused of acting in a high-handed manner when dealing with the public.
In January last year, the magistrate’s court here fined a shop assistant, who was a PPS member, RM3,000 for intentionally causing hurt to a journalist and committing mischief and causing damage.
On Aug 20, social activist Ong Eu Soon, 51, claimed he was assaulted by a group of helmet-wielding men donning the purple vests of the PPS in Air Itam.
In Kuala Lumpur, Umno Youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin described PPS as “dangerous”, questioning the need for the Penang state government to form “your own army in Penang”.
The youth and sports minister said there was no reason to set up PPS with Rakan Cop’s community-oriented policies and programmes in place.
“They already have their own uniform with proper ranks. They should be registered before they are allowed to operate and carry out duties of the police,” he said at Taman Tasik Titiwangsa yesterday.
“It is an offence for PPS not to be registered with the RoS. This is not a trivial matter and must be taken seriously.”
Khairy also posted a photograph of PPS members putting up DAP flags in George Town in his Twitter account yesterday.
“The PPS is there to look after the safety of the people of Penang. Does setting up DAP flags count as crime eradication activities?”
In Langkawi, former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad voiced support for the action taken against PPS.
Dr Mahathir said police had no option but to act against them for taking the law into their own hands under the pretense of carrying out community policing.
“They even challenged the police to arrest them, giving the inspector-general of police no other option but to enforce the law,” Dr Mahathir said after witnessing the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between the Langkawi Development Authority and Sentoria Langkawi Sdn Bhd for the proposed development of Langkawi Geopark and Langkawi Medical Village.
“I have this feeling that they deliberately incited our police to take action against them, with the intention of painting a bad picture of our police being oppressive.”
