'Cabinet trio must rebut bogus crime stats claim'

DAP parliamentary leader Lim Kit Siang has urged three cabinet ministers to break their four-day silence over allegations that police crime data have been manipulated to portray a drop in crime.

The three are Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein, Ministers in Prime Minister’s Office Idris Jala (who is also Performance Management and Delivery Unit, or Pemandu, head) and Koh Tsu Koon, who is tasked with monitoring the Najib administration's key performance indicators (KPI).

Lim (right) was referring to a widely-circulated anonymous letter that claimed that the police had intentionally manipulated the crime statistics to satisfy the federal government that crime had decreased.

The author claimed that burglary, robbery and "causing hurt" - cases of which run into the thousands - were categorised in such a way that such offences would be excluded from what the police refers to as "index crime", whose numbers are reported to the public.

This, claimed the author, had deflated the national crime statistics to show a drop in crime rate in line with the government's KPI targets.

Thank anonymous cop

Lim argued that unless some form of rebuttal from Putrajaya is forthcoming, the federal government would be making a mockery of its ‘Janji Ditepati’ theme for Merdeka Day.

"The anonymous but patriotic police officer who had debunked the false propaganda by the home minister and the two national key result areas (NKRA) ministers, has underlined how empty and meaningless is this Merdeka Day theme,” said Lim in a separate  statement yesterday.

Should the three ministers continue to keep mum, said Lim, Malaysians will have to thank the anonymous police personnel for speaking up.

“At last, Malaysians appear to have gotten the answer to the three-year mystery why Malaysians suffer increasing fear of crime in the midst of the official claim of a drastic fall in the crime rate.”

In a related statement today, Lim said right-minded Malaysians are withholding judgment on the anonymous claim until the trio of ministers provides an official clarification.

"Even more serious, the continued thunderous silence... will give the 55th Merdeka Day theme of 'Janji Ditepati' special, though unwanted, connotations."

He suggested that if there is no explanation, a special cabinet meeting should be convened to discuss the allegation by the said police personnel.