According to published reports citing the travel and world geography website worldatlas.com , Kuala Lumpur, Petaling Jaya, Klang and Johor Baru are among the 10 most dangerous places in Asia.

Never mind about the citing of Malaysia for taking the crown, ie, four out of the 10 cities named in Asia as dangerous.

The four Malaysian cities are said to be infested with risks of falling prey to snatch thieves, scammers and pickpockets as well as the more serious tragedies of rape, robbery and murder.

Worldatlas claims: “Kuala Lumpur suffers from high crime rates as well, and is considered as the second most dangerous city in Asia” ( Free Malaysia Today , April 7, 2016).

The inspector-general of police (IGP) of Malaysia has denied and rubbished these reports. Well, Malaysians would also want to agree with him. After all who in his or right mind would want to run his or her nation down?

But then again, there appears to be a set pattern with the circles of Malaysia’s leadership to first deny any negative highlights or reports by media. If it is flattering we get to see repeats of such accolades in the local media scene.

In the travel website, other Asian cities were also named (ranking a little bit better than us unfortunately) as unsafe destinations.

But there is a stark difference.

In all those ‘other’ cities that topped the list, the citizens there in all likelihood would readily agree with the rating and hope that the published truth will help improve the situation.

But when it comes to Malaysia, even though the citizens walk the streets endlessly worrying as they are habitually now forced to hug their handbags under their armpits and always double padlock their premises not knowing when a lone robber would still venture through, our IGP gets angry with the ratings and refutes them.

Should he not instead say, “Yes, we must redouble our efforts in order for others to perceive and rate us as safe destinations”?

Let the IGP ask his own citizens, are our cities as safe as we perceived them to be some 10 or 20 years ago?

Drop your solace seeking behind statistics. Our published data may tell a different story as we roll them out to suit our defence-making.

We have to have the courage and conviction to address perceptions while we proclaim to be doing our best in policing our environments to better safeguard citizens and visitors.