The police better get their priorities right. To me, it is shocking to learn the way our police are handling an e-mail which it claimed to be spreading 'false news' regarding a 'college student' who was gang-raped and left nude in a drain in Subang Jaya recently.

Instead of taking the matter seriously by investigating whether such an incident really took place and nab the rapist(s), the police seemed to be more interested in tracking the e-mail sender. The police initially claimed, as reported in the Malay Mail , the e-mail carried false news that could create unnecessary chaos.

Perhaps much to the embarrassment of the 'Boleh' Malaysia police force, the so-called 'rumour' turned out to be true, though it was not exactly as written in the e-mail. The following day, the same tabloid again reported that the victim had emerged and lodged a report at the district police headquarters.

Fine, the victim is not a college student, but a 30-something call girl who worked in a hotel. Yes, she was not raped by 10 youths on two separate occasions as claimed by the 'rumour monger', but by a group of three or four.

Does it make any difference here? The fact that the victim is another undeserving woman, and that she was gang-raped should be the police's utmost concern. Unfortunately, this happened when the police claimed that its force is 'the best in the world', and when some SBs (special branch police) told the Internal Security Act detainees that they have power to determine who will be the leader of this country.

Instead of jumping the gun on the 'rumour monger' and thus wasting taxpayers' money to nab this particular 'computer criminal', the police should be thankful instead. I may not have received the e-mail, but I bet the police have totally made a wrong judgement here.

I am pretty sure the e-mail was sent to as many people in a good faith to alert them on such possible danger. Why? Because people know that there are so many serial rapists, murderers, snatch thieves, and other types of criminals at large these days. Nobody feels safe anymore. If not for oneself, one always think of the safety of his or her family members, friends and relatives.

Such feelings need no explanation because the police force, despite of having a police-to-people ratio of 1:300 (only those who do not understand simple mathematics will deny this ratio), is too busy dispersing ceramah and other legal gatherings or activities to ensure the victory of Barisan Nasional in the next election.

It is sad to see people get abducted, killed, raped or sodomised in this country after 46 years of independence. While I do not wish to undermine the police credibility as a whole, I hope that the police could learn from past mistakes and improve its force.

After all, the rakyat still needs the police even though their level of confidence may have generally dropped quite significantly. Unless some improvements are made, we may not see bright young Malaysians being interested in the police force in the near future. Till then, may God bless Malaysia!