PKR Bayan Baru members have lodged a police report claiming that a petition sent to party supremo Anwar Ibrahim urging him to step down recently contained false signatures.

Entitled ‘Memorandum Taubat ' (repent), the document containing 71 signatures, allegedly from party members all over Penang, was submitted to PKR headquarters in Petaling Jaya on Oct 17.

Two of the alleged signatories - Sallehuddin PDK Abdullah and Hazali Yahaya - both exco members of the party division in Bayan Baru - issued a joint statement on Thursday claiming that their signatures were forged.

They urged the police to investigate the matter straightaway as they were planning to take further action against the suspected falsifier of the document.

hazali - PKR Bayan Baru Hazali ( left) when met yesterday, said they were surprised to find their names in the petition, and only learnt of the matter recently when other members questioned their loyalty to the party and wanted to know why they had signed it.

He then produced the document and the signatures all appeared to have been done by one person but without identity card numbers.

Hazali then alleged that former PKR Bayan Baru MP Zahrain Mohamed Hashim's special assistant Ismail Mohd Ali and his son Nor Ilmi could be behind the whole affair.

Zahrain has since quit the party to become an Independent MP in Bayan Baru.

"We are giving them five days to answer these charges, failing which, we will take legal action against them," he said.

Unleashing counter-attack

Meanwhile, out of the 26 Bayan Baru members said to have allegedly signed the petition, only eight were party members.

PKR Bayan Baru Youth chief Ahmad Azrizal Tahir said of this eight, four were family members of Ismail, who had also abandoned the party in April 2010.

Ismail's wife, two sons and a daughter were allegedly among the petitioners. Ismail's son is still a member of the Bayan Baru division.

"The memorandum that was handed over to PKR by Ismail's son, Nor Ilmi, at the party's PJ headquarters, was intended to cause mischief and gain free publicity," said Ahmad Azrizal.

"The motive was to create a negative impression of PKR and its claims are baseless," he added.

When contacted, Ismail rubbished the claim saying that he was not the only Ismail Mohd Ali in Malaysia, and that the signature could have come from anyone.

He insisted that he had nothing to do with the memorandum, but said if PKR members were seeking answers, they should direct their questions to Anwar himself as it is he who should ‘ taubat '.

"The memorandum concerns him, no one else," Ismail told Malaysiakini .

"If they (PKR Bayan Baru) want to take action, we will see them in court but we will subpoena Anwar to be present so that we can question him," he added.

Ismail said it was wrong for the division to lay blame on him and his family for the petition when the signatures were not accompanied by personal identification numbers .

"How can they claim that the signature is mine? Without any personal identification, no action can be taken against me or my family," he added.