By Ida Lim
KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 16 — Crime watchdog MyWatch said today that it had proof that the crime rate had gone up last year, and furnished what it said was official police data to back up its claims that the national crime statistics had been manipulated.
“All these statistics have never been revealed to (the) public and were not mentioned in any crime index drop that was given by PDRM (Royal Malaysian Police) or Home Affairs Ministry,” MyWatch chairman R. Sri Sanjeevan said at a press conference here.
He said that the overall vehicle theft had in the July-September period in 2012 risen by 3.5 per cent, or 624 cases, in comparison with the same period in 2011.
He also said that serious crimes such as criminal intimidation, kidnapping, extortion and causing grievous hurt are classified as non-index crimes, which are not included in the national crime statistics.
The police divide crime into two categories, index and non-index — with the former defined as crime that is reported with sufficient regularity and significance to be a meaningful indicator of the crime situation, while the latter is considered as minor in nature.
Sanjeevan gave calculations, purportedly obtained from the police, of the percentage increase of serious crimes for certain states by comparing the January-June period in 2011 and 2012.
“I would like to challenge the IGP (Inspector-General of Police) Tan Sri Ismail Omar and Home Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein to deny the facts and figures given by us,” he said, adding that the duo have to answer and explain the crime statistics to the public.
Former IGP Tan Sri Musa Hassan, the patron of MyWatch, had previously accused the government of hiding facts about the crime rate from the public.
But the police had last August issued a detailed reply to rebut allegations that it had manipulated crime statistics.