KUALA LUMPUR: Brushing aside a proposal that an Independent Police Integrity Commission (Ipic) be set up to check abuses of power and graft among the boys in blue, top cop Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar said that the public are the best monitor of police misconduct.

He said the public are tech savvy and make use of their smartphones to immediately expose any abuse of power or misconduct via social media. “I think this is the best monitoring for us. With the smartphone, they take a picture and put it on YouTube. So the people generally can monitor anything that involves the police,” the Inspector-General of Police said in Kuala Lumpur yesterday.

Khalid was commenting on the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) Consultation and Corruption Prevention Panel’s suggestion that the police look into setting up the Ipic in an effort to reform the force and improve public perception towards it.

“I am waiting for the proposal. We have not seen it yet. We will see what are the suggestions and proposals made by the committee in setting up the Ipic before making any comments. But as I said before, PDRM (Royal Malaysian Police) is not only closely monitored by the new Integrity and Standard Compliance Department but also by the MACC and the Enforcement Agency Integrity Commission (EAIC). But more than that, we are also monitored by the people.”

The Ipic is similar to the Independent Police Complaints and Misconduct Commission, which was proposed by the 2005 Dzaiddin Police Royal Commission of Inquiry.

Meanwhile, police will not allow local militants linked to the Islamic State of Syria and Iraq jihadist group to carry out their threat to annihilate non-Muslims in the country, Khalid said yesterday in an online news portal report.

In an attempt to downplay the matter, he reportedly said the threat was mostly just “talk” and raised doubts about whether it could be carried out. “They are just talking. Everyone can talk, but whether they can do it or not is another matter. Do not pay too much attention to what they are saying,” Khalid was quoted as saying.

The IGP was commenting on the warning issued by Federal Police Special Branch counter-terrorism division principal assistant director, SAC Datuk Ayob Khan, urging non-Muslims to be on the alert.— The Malaysian Insider

This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, on October 24, 2014.