It was not a 'giant rat' that was caught in USJ 11 based on photos of it circulating online but rather the camera angle which made the rodent seem extra-large, said Subang Jaya state assemblyperson Hannah Yeoh.

The Selangor state assembly speaker said the angle taken when the rat was photographed had made it look gigantic.

The aforementioned photo shows a man holding a rat using a pair of iron tongs.

Uploading another picture online, which shows the same man holding the rat from a different angle, Yeoh said this was proof that it was normal in size.

"BN can stop wasting time spinning the story online," she said on her Facebook page.

Nevertheless, checks conducted by Malaysiakini on BN-friendly sites as well as the social media accounts of BN politicians did not find the photo nor the article on the rat being shared.

Yeoh said the 'Operasi tTkus ' was led by Subang Jaya Municipal Council (MPSJ) councillor Pooi Weng Keong and the Zone Three residents' committee.

'Are you mutating them?'

Further checks online found Facebook user Lim Sian See posting the picture, asking what Yeoh and the Selangor government were doing to combat the problem.

"(Are you) trying to breed rats bigger than dogs? Are you mutating them with air lombong enak dan lazat (delicious water from mines)?

"Is this a new record entry in the Malaysian Book of Records ?" asked the Facebook user whose post received more than 1,000 shares.

Lim, nevertheless was also slammed by other Facebook users who called him a BN cybertrooper and some had also asked why the Selangor government was blamed on the matter.

Several Facebook users also pointed out that an article Lim had accompanied with his post was written in 2011.

The New Straits Times article then had quoted residents in Subang Jaya as claiming that some of the rats were as big as cats.

The four-year-old article however showed that the rat problem was not new in the constituency and MPSJ had to resort to numerous campaigns and ways to tackle the problem.