IGP: Gangs, drugs and guns, an 'all-in-one' package

The recent spate of gun-related shootings in the country has put the men-in-blue in the hot seat.

Hard-pressed for answers and solutions on this apparent trend of violent crimes, police have, in part, blamed the absence of preventive laws such as the Emergency Ordinance.

In a recent interview with Astro AWANI, Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar admitted that it was unrealistic for him to ask everyone “not to worry” at this time, as even the police are concerned.

However, he urged the public to give the force trust and adequate time to tackle this issue in totality.

“In my view, from my own analysis, these drug syndicates… when they smuggle drugs in, the drugs are usually packaged with guns,” said Khalid, explaining that given Malaysia’s stiff death penalty, this was to ‘give confidence’ to the drug distributors.

“The difference now is that these syndicate members are now willing to use them. We found that the distributors are the gangsters, and when they have the guns, they will use them,” he said.

Khalid also said that the “trend” of shooting cases seem to point to a particular group of criminals who are attempting to take control over an “area of activity”.

“But it is too early for us to call it a real turf war… though we cannot deny that amongst the causes behind this is the drug distribution network,” he said.

According to Khalid, violent cases involving guns have begun rising since mid last year, and many involve those ex-convicts and those with a detention record.

“So these repeat offenders are one of our focuses,” he said.

While drugs are one of the main channels for the smuggling in of guns into the country, Khalid also said that each case would have its own individual facts.

“There are those who are related to drugs, those related to other gangsterism activities, so let us investigate in detail first before we speculate,” he said.

“Like what I said previously, each case has its own facts. Again we are not facing a madman with a gun running around shooting everybody he likes…we are also not dealing with monkeys, we are dealing with thinking human beings who plan all these things so we need detail plans to uncover (their activities),” he said.

However, Khalid also stressed that police efforts have already seen some results, with a number of big syndicates being crippled and their leaders prosecuted.

"We have been going hard on kingpins, just look at the number of them we’ve charged in court.”

“We are aiming at the big players but that doesn’t mean we don’t take action against those who misuse drugs. But the traffickers are the main focus, those who bring drugs into the country and distribute to the smaller runners. That’s our job.”

Khalid, however, reminded that the war on drugs must be tackled at both ends—the supply and demand.

“Both of these need to be tackled in parallel. If we try to attack the supply but not the demand, this problem will never end.”