Malaysia is beefing up its police force by recruiting 23,000 people over the next two years to cope with "increasing workload," local media said Sunday.

"We want to increase the number of rank-and-file members and officers because the police workload is getting increasingly heavy," Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi was quoted as saying by the Star.

Some 4,000 personnel have been selected and would undergo training soon, he said.

Facilities at existing training centres would be upgraded and new centres built, Abdullah said.

Must be improved

There are currently 80,000 police personnel of all ranks in the country of 23 million, the English-language daily said.

Abdullah, who is also home minister, said the ratio between policemen and the population was "bad and needs to be improved."

There has been rising public concern over recent violent crimes including the rape and murder of a 28-year-old woman last month.

Canny Ong, an IT analyst married to an American, was abducted from the parking lot of a shopping mall in an upmarket suburb on June 13. Her charred body was subsequently found in a culvert several kilometres away. - AFP