Man on a mission to lay down the law

Deputy Inspector-General of Police Datuk Razarudin Husain(centre) witnessing the handing over of duties from acting Johor CPO Datuk Khow Kok Chin (left) to Comm Kamarul Zaman on Jan 16. - Bernama

JOHOR police chief Comm Datuk Kamarul Zaman Mamat, 58, has inherited a tight ship from his predecessor and says that they share the same mission that the men and women in blue should always have high integrity when doing their job.

Comm Kamarul Zaman is no stranger to the state as he had previously held the position of CID chief.

Besides criminal investigations, the veteran cop with 33 years of experience had spent a sizeable amount of time in narcotics at the district, state and federal levels.

He was also in the anti-vice, gambling and secret societies division, had served as South Klang OCPD and was for a short time, the Kedah CPO before moving down south.

In an exclusive interview with StarMetro, Comm Kamarul Zaman, who assumed his post on Jan 16, said police personnel at every level must ensure efficient service as the public was the main judge of their performance.

As someone who has fought against drugs most of his career, he said community involvement was needed to deal with the menace, from schools to Felda settlements.

Why did you join the police force? What was your career progression?I am from Jeli, Kelantan, and I joined the police force in June 1988 with the rank of assistant superintendent soon after graduating with an Economics degree from Universiti Malaya.

I had always wanted to be a policeman since young. This was the first job I applied for after graduating.

In school, I was a police cadet and enjoyed playing the trumpet and trombone in the school band. We used to travel around Kelantan playing the national and state anthems at events.

After undergoing training for a year, I was first posted to Sungai Petani district police headquarters and worked as an investigations officer as well as prosecuting officer. I did administration work and was also at the traffic department.

It was a good experience before moving to Perak police headquarters, to the narcotics branch. At least four high-profile narcotics cases that I was involved in led to convictions and all the accused were hanged.

In 2003, I was promoted and moved to Bukit Aman, also in narcotics. Then in 2007, I was promoted to Asst Comm and sent to Bukit Aman’s anti-vice, gambling and secret societies division (D7). I was there for seven years specialising in case files. We locked up and banished many syndicate and gang members nationwide under the Emergency Ordinance.

Subsequently, I was sent to South Klang as OCPD before going to Johor as CID chief in 2015.

In 2017, I returned to Bukit Aman narcotics as Property Forfeiture, Investigations and Legal deputy director before I was made commissioner and sent to Kedah as police chief in 2021. In less than seven months, I became Johor CPO and have been here since Jan 16.

Since taking charge, what is your message to the men and women in blue here?I took over from Datuk Ayub Khan Mydin Pitchay, who was promoted as Bukit Aman’s Narcotics Crime Investigations Department (NCID) director.

Both our vision and mission are the same. Our men and women should always have integrity and be sincere in doing their job. I warn my personnel never to be in cahoots with bad company. Do not be a traitor to the force. I will not tolerate such behaviour and they will not only be sacked but also charged in court.

My advice to the more than 10,000 uniformed and civilian personnel in Johor is to follow instructions and the rules set out by the force, including declaring assets to avoid unnecessary problems.

What are your focus areas as state police chief?For me, the benchmark is how the public or the community perceive the job that we are doing in terms of managing safety and security.

If I set key performance indicators for my men with about 16 things and all of these are achieved, this is something for our own internal review.

The most important thing is the KPI from outside, especially the community. So far, my men have been able to carry out their duties well and serve the community.

Besides enforcing Covid-19 restrictions, we also hear stories of policemen helping to push stalled cars by the roadside, rescuing animals from drains, helping people with a flat tyre and others. I believe everyone in the force needs to work towards this, from the gardener to the office boy, as everyone has a role to play to ensure we provide good and prompt service to the public.

After being in narcotics for almost 20 years, how will you use that experience in Johor?One thing that needs constant cleaning up are areas with drug addicts. I like what the Hong Kong police do. Upon receiving such complaints, they will carry out a massive clean-up of the area with the relevant agencies for a few days. On the last day, a forum is organised with the local community to tell them what they have done and ask for views on what to do next.

Maybe we can start with the Felda settlements in Johor which have a drug problem. We can engage with the local community there. Yes, drugs are a problem and more needs to be done to eradicate this menace.

If the government via its campaigns can successfully reduce smoking, why not do the same for drugs? We need concerted efforts as the police and anti-narcotics agency are enforcement agencies and at the tail end when it comes to making arrests and prosecuting those responsible.

The fight against drugs should involve everyone, including parents, communities and institutions such as schools.

These days, children start taking drugs at a young age because of friends. I have not seen that trend in Johor but on the east coast of the peninsula, children in Year Five have started consuming drugs known as pil kuda. In such cases, we come down hard on those supplying the drugs to the children.Do you have many personnel with disciplinary problems in Johor? What about drug addiction?I pay serious attention to those who fail to do their job. Dereliction of duty is a serious offence and I will not tolerate that.

In the past three years, we have opened investigation papers on 268 personnel with 35 charged in court for various offences, mainly drugs, corruption and other crimes.

We do have some drug addicts in the force but the number is small. Nonetheless, I want to ensure there is zero tolerance for drug addicts in the force as they are a danger not only to themselves but also others such as when handling a gun, interviewing witnesses or when the person is on sentry duty.

Imagine someone high on drugs taking down your police report. These people should be sacked. That is why I have asked our Johor Integrity and Standards Compliance Department to constantly monitor problematic staff, including carrying out random urine tests.

Johor used to be a hotbed for crime. What is the trend now?Before 2015, there were frequent gang fights and deaths due to shootings on a regular basis. These attacks happened in broad daylight and involved victims being shot while running errands like grocery shopping.

The police at that time decided to come down hard on organised crime. Our first arrests involved more than 20 members of a secret society implicated in extortion, kidnapping and murder. In fact, the first case under Security Offences (Special Measures) Act 2012 was in Johor in 2017. These gangs were fighting to control the supply of drugs and smuggling in their areas. At that time, there were many gangs with code names such as 04, 21, 36 and many more.

All these operations have had an effect and serious crimes have dropped. Actually, shooting cases have dropped not just in Johor but nationwide as after us, Selangor, Penang and Kedah started carrying out similar operations.

Has there been an increase or decrease in the crime index since the Covid-19 pandemic?Crime cases have shown a decline between 2019 and 2021. Serious crimes have dropped from 1,923 in 2019 to 1,283 (2020) and 925 cases in 2021. These cover murder, rape, armed robbery, robbery without arms and causing grievous hurt.

As for property crimes, the trend is also on the decline with recording 7,947 cases recorded in 2019, 5,967 cases in 2020 and 3,440 in 2021. They include vehicle and motorcycle theft as well as house break-ins.

Our crime index has dropped by 40% in 2021 in the past three years. This shows that the Covid-19 pandemic did not have a major impact on crime in the state.

What new trends have emerged in Johor since the border closure with Singapore?We have noticed that families of people living in Singapore, who borrowed money from loan sharks in Malaysia, are being threatened by syndicates or have had their houses splashed with red paint.

In some cases, the father, mother and other family members have to run away from their houses. Our investigations show that the person may have already paid the money in Singapore but his family still gets harassed in Malaysia.

I will be liaising with my Singaporean counterpart on this issue.

Is public participation helpful in fighting crime in Johor? What else can be done to encourage sharing of information?Public cooperation is vital in helping us carry out operations against criminals. In fact, many public tip-offs have led to successful operations and arrests, especially involving narcotics.

The police will continue to engage with the community, especially via neighbourhood patrol units, the Malaysian Crime Prevention Foundation and other groups.

We encourage the public to channel information via social media such as Facebook, WhatsApp, TikTok as well as phone calls and letters.

We also have a volunteer smartphone app in Johor which has over 129,000 members. All these people can be the eyes and ears of the police in the state.

Some of the viral videos on social media have also been helpful but we hope when they post, they can add more details such as road names or where the incident happened to help us in our investigations.

Is the public fearful of coming forward to help the police? How can the police address this matter?I want to do my best to change the perception. The men in blue are here to help and serve the people. We are friends of the community. I always tell my personnel to be courteous and treat people with respect. Not everyone is a criminal. The bad apples are a small number and we have been telling our personnel to be friendlier.

We can already see this happening when our personnel answer calls courteously or even smile and greet people who come to lodge reports at police stations. However, there is still room for improvement. We see the community as our friend and will continue to enhance our friendship.

Are commercial crime cases on the rise? Can you share some statistics?

Actually, the number of cases involving commercial crimes is also on the decline. In 2019 we had 4,191 cases while in 2020 there were 4,161 and last year, 3,080.

Even the losses have reduced from RM282mil in 2020 to RM123mil in 2021.

We will continue our efforts to educate the public via awareness programmes. This must go on as most of those who have been scammed got cheated via gadgets or devices. In most commercial crime cases, the element of greed is what causes people to get conned.

Many Singaporeans own property here but have been unable to cross the border because of Covid-19. Has the number of house break-ins increased?Such cases have also dropped. In 2020, we had four house break-ins involving properties owned by Singaporeans. Last year we had two and so far this year, there have been no cases as at Feb 7.

Overall, house burglaries are also down, with 1,277 cases recorded in 2020 and 883 last year.

What are the challenges of policing a border state like Johor?We have a good working relationship with our counterparts in Singapore and Indonesia, especially in combating cross-border crime, mainly drugs, human trafficking, contraband smuggling and cybercrime.

We worked with the Indonesian authorities to send back the bodies of their nationals who drowned in Kota Tinggi recently.

Our main cooperation with Singapore involves drug smuggling and those trying to sneak through the border without going through immigration.