PARLIAMENT Twenty-four police officers have been subjected to internal action for losing firearms belonging to the department, as highlighted in the Audit Report, the Home Ministry has said.

NONEDeputy Home Minister Wan Junaidi Wan Jaafar (left) told the Dewan Rakyat today that for the remaining 20 missing firearms out of the 44 reported, the cases were still being investigated.

“Thirteen officers were charged in 2010, four in 2011, and seven in 2012,” Wan Junaidi said today in response to a question from Anthony Loke Siew Fook (DAP-Seremban) regarding action taken against officers found to be careless in losing firearms during Question Time.

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Wan Junaidi said that internal action taken was similar to a court martial practised in the military.

However, he stressed that not all cases of missing firearms can be categorised as negligence.

“Not all are negligence. Sometimes the officer probably struggles with a criminal near a river, so the weapon drops into the river, the circumstances are different,” Wan Junaidi said.

Wan Junaidi also said that the police already have a new Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) to tackle problems such as missing firearms from recurring.

“I am very confident that the police will take stern action against the officers who are found to be negligent while losing their firearms,” he said.

He said that every officer who loses his or her firearm is required to file a report to the police as they are supposed to return their firearms to the department.

Meanwhile, Wan Junaidi said that 1,097 units of illegal firearms had been seized by the police since 2008 till September this year.

Out of this, 406 were pistols, 218 were home-made guns and 164 were revolvers, along with several other types of firearms, he said.