Selangor gets new police chief

Come Wednesday, Datuk Abdul Samah Mat takes over as police chief in Selangor, the richest and most developed state in the country.

He takes over the reins from Datuk Mohd Shukri Dahlan who is retiring. The handing-over ceremony, held at the Selangor police contingent headquarters here today, was witnessed by Bukit Aman Director of Management, Mohamad Fuzi Harun.

Mohamad Fuzi represented Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar.

Abdul Samah, 57, was previously director-general of the Protection Division in the Prime Minister's Department for seven months.

He had also held the post of deputy director of the Criminal Investigation Department (Legal/Investigation), Bukit Aman from 2012 to October last year.

Abdul Samah told reporters: "(As Selangor police chief), I will focus more on public safety and crime prevention, besides increasing the quality of service.

"This is to ensure the public get better service and our members can perform their duties well."

Meanwhile, Mohd Shukri said he was proud that during his service (as Selangor police chief), the crime rate had gone down by 11.73 percent.

"The rate of house burglaries, as well as street crime was reduced and we achieved our target as set by the NKRA (National Key Result Areas).

"...and we even defeated syndicates involving Latin Americans," he added.