Najib Vows to Tackle Recent Spate of “Brazen” Gun Crime

The recent, well-planned murder of a respected Bahrain-born businessman in Kuala Lumpur has generated the sort of international headlines we could well do without. It has been reported around the world that 75-year-old Hussain Ahmad Najadi, who founded the Arab Malaysian Development Bank in the 1970s, was shot in the chest and stomach and died on the spot. His wife was shot in the arm by the three attackers who are believed to have fled in a taxi.

Appalled by the shooting and the recent spate of gun crime, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak has vowed to get tough. "I am deeply concerned by recent developments where murders involving firearms can occur in a brazen manner," he said.

"We are ready to give the police anything it needs in its fight against serious crime."

Najib added that the Government will look at the gun crime issue ahead of the next sitting of Parliament while police investigating the Najadi shooting are speculating it could have been a contract killing connected to a recent business deal.

The way Najib has responded to this issue is the right way. As frightening and emotive as gun crime is, Governments have a responsibility to work with police and allow their most experienced investigators do their job.

The wrong way are the sort of top down interference and quotas favoured by Pakatan Rakyat, which, should it have been elected, would have ordered police away from their normal duties so that they could say there were more cops walking the streets. But as police pointed out at the time, such a strategy would have denied them key resources.

What of the office staff who take calls from the public? Or those who coordinate scientific evidence and manage the resources so vital for fighting crime? The Government, meantime, is set to make good on its manifesto promise to hire 4,000 extra police and to support these officers, and will enlist an army of 50,000 PDRM volunteers to ease the workload.

Najib has attacked the "brazen" nature of some of the recent shootings. But with his response he has also sent a message that the Government and police will not tolerate this recent wave of armed violence.