LANGKAWI (April 16): Today’s change in leadership of the Langkawi police will not affect the force’s preparations for the coming 14th General Election (GE-14) in the island, says Kedah Chief Police Officer (CPO), Datuk Zainal Abidin Kassim.

Rather, he said the new leadership of the force would need to adapt fast to understand the scenario in order to respond promptly to any situation during the GE-14.

“We need to catch up very fast as there is no time to learn step by step about it (GE-14),” he said after witnessing the handing-over of duties between outgoing Langkawi police chief, ACP Dr Che Ghazali Che Awang and his successor, Supt Mohd Iqbal Ibrahim.

Zainal said Che Ghazali, who would take over as Kelantan’s Crime Prevention and Community Safety head, had laid out the ground work for his successor to bring down the crime index and combat drug abuse while the outgoing police chief was at the helm over the last three years in the island.

Meanwhile, Che Ghazali said combating drug abuse in the island was his main focus during his stint as it was inadvertently linked to incidences of property and other crimes.

“If we manage to keep down cases of drug abuse, it will automatically reduce other crimes,” he noted.

He said 2,742 people were arrested over the past three years for various drug-related offences here which in turn, led to the crime index dropping by 37 per cent during the period.

For the record, Che Ghazali led in developing a barcode identification system for motorcycles which won a Home Ministry Innovation Award.

As a result of the system, motorcycle theft cases in Langkawi dropped by 80 per cent.