SHAH ALAM, 12 Nov: Nurul Izzah Anwar questioned the BN government’s actions of placing 30 members of the Special Branch in London, England.
The Member of Parliament for Lembah Pantai said that the cost of placing the contingent in London is funded by public funds, and as far as she knows, there does not seem to be any credible threat to Malaysia’s internal security coming from England.
“Would it not be better if they patrol our Malaysian neighbourhoods?” Nurul Izzah said.
She said this when speaking at a forum on the goods and services tax (GST) in Bangsar, Kuala Lumpur, last night,
The Special Branch’s London contingent, she added, was revealed in various government documents such as the 10th Malaysia Plan and the annual Budget, and from the Home Ministry’s replies in the Dewan Rakyat.
She said that placing 30 officers in London was yet another example of how the Home Ministry did not properly allocate policing resources to combat crime.
This is because, she said, the main task of officers placed in the Special Branch is to spy on Pakatan Rakyat (PR) politicians.
“In 1954, to battle the Communists, we had 459 Special Branch officers. Now we have 8,200. So we have more special branch officers now compared to the time when we were battling Communists?”
“The number of special branch members has also increased since Najib became Prime Minister. In 2008, we had 5,000 special branch members. The figure has increased by 3,000 during Najib’s administration,” said Nurul Izzah.
She said that the crime solving rate could be boosted if special branch officers are redeployed to the Criminal Investigation Department (CID).
Nurul Izzah said last year that the Special Branch churned out 830,000 surveillance reports mostly on Pakatan politicians. By contrast, the CID solved 60,000 criminal cases.
“Could not these Special Branch officers be redeployed to the CID so that we could boost our crime solving rate?” said Nurul Izzah.
