PETALING JAYA: The police should not deny anyone their right to lodge a report or report an incident based on their attire, says Digital Minister Gobind Singh Deo.
Gobind urged the Inspector-General of Police to issue a clear directive to all police stations nationwide ensuring no victim or complainant seeking to report an accident or crime is denied their rights based on clothing.
"People don’t dress up in anticipation of crime. It cannot therefore be the basis for deciding whether or not a person can or cannot in law lodge reports.
"What is important is that an incident has occurred which needs to be reported and action needs to be taken to deal with it without delay," he said in a statement.
Gobind said he will also raise the matter with Home Minister Datuk Seri Saifuddin Nasution Ismail and request a review of all existing guidelines that may deny public access to police stations for lodging reports or investigations.
He emphasised that authorities must ensure all police stations remain accessible at all times for lodging police reports.
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"We must ensure that incidents like these do not happen again. The police have no right to impose upon anyone standards which are unilateral, arbitrary and/or unreasonable," he said.
Gobind, who is also a lawyer, condemned the incident where a woman and her daughter were allegedly refused entry into the Jasin district police headquarters in Melaka due to their attire after they attempted to report a car accident.
He stressed that the fundamental purpose of a police station is to serve the public, protect citizens, and facilitate the reporting of crimes and accidents as required by law.
"Denying a person the right to file a police report because of how they are dressed is not just an abuse of authority but is also an obstruction of justice as persons are required in law in many instances to lodge reports.
"It is therefore the duty of a police officer to facilitate access for that purpose and not the reverse.
"The immediate and primary focus of the police officer on duty should have been to assist the victims in recording the details of the incident and not turning them away as in this case," he added.
On Tuesday (Dec 9), Melaka Police Chief Deputy Comm Datuk Dzulkhairi Mukhtar said an internal inquiry was launched after a woman who tried to lodge a police report following a traffic accident was stopped at the Jasin police headquarters entrance due to her attire not meeting the government dress code.
He said the dress code is based on a circular issued by the Chief Secretary to the Government on public sector customer relations management dated December 1, 2020.
Earlier, the woman told a vernacular media outlet that she and her daughter, in her 20s, were on their way to Kuala Lumpur from Johor when their car was hit from behind along KM174.8 of the North-South Expressway.
She went to the Jasin police headquarters to file a report, but was stopped at the entrance because her skirt was slightly above the knee.
