Reform advocacy group Centre For A Better Tomorrow (Cenbet) has urged that action be taken against those who lodge frivolous police reports for political leverage instead of genuine reasons, which leads to waste of police resources.

“The police should act against those who lodge reports based on flimsy grounds merely to achieve political ends. This is to stem the rising trend of police reports being used for anything but to track down criminals or crime prevention.

“Those who lodge such frivolous and politically-motivated reports do so at the expense of taxpayers’ resources. As it is, the manpower of our men in blue in combating crime is already stretched thin,” said Cenbet vice-president Ng Yeen Seen.

She said that such frivolous police reports based on “information” that stretches one’s imagination is tantamount to disrespecting the enforcers of law and order.

“They should not be treated like a political tool to intimidate and frustrate one’s political opponents,” she argued, adding that roping in the Royal Malaysian Police into one’s political theatrics is an affront to an important public institution, and indeed to the Agong.

She recounted that lately several controversial police reports had been lodged, ranging from claims that an NGO had been infiltrated by the Islamic State; of Tan Sris conspiring to topple the government and over alleged unfairness of awarding pensions to Olympic medalists.

She also roped in Rani Kulup, the latest phenomenon in police reporting who had hundreds of police reports to his name, with the latest asking the government to ban the Pokemon Go mobile game in Malaysia, as a prime example of such frivolity.

“Under Section 182 of the Penal Code, one convicted of lodging a police report based on false information is liable to be jailed up to six months or fined a maximum of RM2,000 or both,” reminded the Cenbet vice-president.

“This will send a strong message to those considering such political gimmicks in the future to reconsider. It would also help free up the police’s resources to attend only to bona fide cases,” she concluded.