There is an average of slightly less than one gunshot victim per day or 23 within a month, according to his research, said Bayan Baru MP Sim Tze Tzin.

Sim said the study was done based on newspaper cuttings of shooting cases from June 30 to July 31, where the breakdown was 10 deaths and 13 injured.

“For July, there is an average of one person killed every three days and one injured almost every two days, in the whole country,” Sim said.

“There have been four such cases in Penang, one in Kuala Lumpur, one in Kedah, three in Perak and one in Kelantan,” he added.

NONE Sim ( left ) said the statistics are based on reports in newspapers in all languages, adding that “the crime rate is serious since these are reported cases”.

He added that the cases were not merely perception but reality.

“Everyone can feel it,” he quipped.

Sim said in July, 25 robbery and burglary cases were reported, drugs (eight), snatch theft (six), car theft (three), kidnap (two), and murder (two).

In the eight drug cases, police recovered a total of 1,453.5kg of various kinds of substances worth RM50mil, he added.

“The authorities should take stern action against the perpetrators, they cannot be window-dressing any longer and say that these are all perception or say that the crime rate has dropped,” Sim said.

“Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Idris Jala said the crime rate has dropped but serious crime had increased,” he added.

Sim urged the police to look into this instead of blaming the rise in crime on the abolishment of the Emergency Ordinance (EO).

He said police were using this argument  to restore preventive detention measures or to draft a new security law.

Prime Minister Najib Razak had promised to do away with preventive detention measures in 2011, Sim reminded.

“However, certain quarters in the Home Ministry are trying to use the excuse of the increased crime rate to justify the need for preventive detention laws,” he said.

“This contradicts the statement that increase in crime is merely a perception,” he added.

‘Victims were targetted’

Sim refuted allegations that all recent criminal cases were committed by former E0 detainees, adding that the victims were targetted.

NONE “It has the appearance of organised crime where hitmen are hired to shoot the targetted victims,” he said.

“The Home Ministry should be well aware that the crime rate was already high before the EO was abolished,” he added.

Sim also argued that the police workforce is not understaffed with the police to citizen ratio being 1:270, which is in line with international standards.

Home Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi had claimed that the police to citizen ratio is 1:700, Sim said, asking him to “stop the nonsense and get his people back to work”.

He cited examples - in Australia, the police to citizen ration is 1: 257 and in Singapore its is 1: 288, saying the two countries offer better security.

“If Singapore is a small island and that it is easier to take care of, how about Australia that is 10 times bigger than Malaysia?” he asked.

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