Former inspector-generals of police Rahim Noor and Hanif Omar are better advised to mind the murky waters which they once policed rather than butt into matters extraneous to their previous portfolios.

DAP national vice-chair M Kulasegaran described the interjections of the former top cops into the national debate over demands that Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak resign from his post over the 1MDB affair as “grossly unwarranted and self-serving”.

“They should instead direct their attention to the murky waters surrounding the force they once led which from political interference and poor administration seems to have lost its way,” observed the MP for Ipoh Barat in comments about the opinions on latest developments on the 1MDB imbroglio expressed by the ex-IGPs.

Both former IGPs have urged a police investigation into reports that an array of documents connected to 1MDB were allegedly falsified in order to get the PM ousted from office.

Further, Hanif and Rahim have said that the only way to remove an elected PM is through a general election and that ongoing urgings for Najib’s resignation over the 1MDB imbroglio smack of extra-constitutional practices and are therefore illicit.

“Talking about constitutional practices, I wish the former IGPs would have expressed their opinions when the current IGP appeared ambivalent before conflicting civil and syariah court orders in child custody tussles,” lamented the Ipoh Barat MP, who has appeared as counsel in such cases.

Kulasegaran ( photo ) wondered whether Hanif’s interjection in the national debate was a follow-through to his claim that the ISA detentions under ‘Operation Lalang’ in late 1987 when he was the IGP was entirely a police initiative that was at variance to the political authority.

Muddled conception

In recent years Dr Mahathir Mohamad, PM and home minister during ‘Operation Lalang’, disclosed that he was not in favour of the detentions but that the police were adamant that the Internal Security Act (ISA) must be applied.

“That override by the police effectively rendered Malaysia a police state because there was no provision in the ISA for an override of the political authority by the police,” opined Kulasegaran.

The federal legislator said that reigning confusion over the actual role of the police force has resulted in what he described as “grotesque consequences”.

“A muddled conception of what the police role is in our set-up has caused much distress to civil society and now these former IGPs are deepening the confusion by holding forth on matters on which they are clearly not conversant,” said Kulasegaran.

“They are better advised to mind their former portfolios that have grown confused from political interference and bad administration,” said the DAP leader.