Opposition Leader Lim Kit Siang today cautioned PAS against trying to gain support from a disgruntled police force over the Independent Police Complaints and Misconduct Commission (IPCMC) issue.

"PAS should stop flirting with the reactionary police forces... to gain political mileage at the expense of the prime minister and Umno, as the IPCMC is a bigger issue than partisan politics or political gain," he said in a statement.

"I was most irritated by the game played by PAS leaders in refusing to express clear and categorical support for the IPCMC."

The parliamentary opposition leader and Ipoh Timur MP said the Islamic party had to resort to "evasive tactics" on the issue.

He said the party's No 2 Nasharuddin Mat Isa failed to clarify the matter while its secretary-general Kamaruddin Jaffar had taken exception to his query.

"Frankly speaking, I asked the question because I do not know what is PAS' stand on the IPCMC. In fact, the party's deputy president was also unclear as illustrated in the malaysiakini report ."

Referring to the last parliamentary meeting, Lim noted that PAS MPs had been conspicuously silent and absent in the push for the government to establish the IPCMC.

"Maybe this is why it's quite impossible to search the Hakarah and PAS websites and discover any clear and categorical statement by the party leadership supporting the IPCMC although it was the centre of a prolonged national controversy in the past 12 months."

Unite on issue

He referred to the bloody Sunday incident on May 28 and the Penang protest on May 4 as examples of "deplorable police misconduct".

It was important, he said, to "isolate and flush out the reactionary forces whether in the Malaysian police or the political arena" and remove the obstacles standing in the way of establishing an independent police watchdog.

He urged all Malaysians to unite on this if they are committed towards a clean, incorruptible, professional and human rights-sensitive world-class police service.

Citing Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's open commitment, Lim said the IPCMC was one issue political leaders, regardless of party leanings, should stand as one and deny any opportunity for reactionary police or political forces to sabotage.

The issue began hogging headlines since last week after wide media coverage of an internal report opposing the IPCMC, which police later claimed had been meant for internal circulation, was found posted on the official police website.