‘Lawas not lawless as claimed by news portal’

Lawas is not a lawless cowboy town but a booming district and a safe destination for tourists and visitors. Lawas OCPD DSP Anthony Abell yesterday refuted claims by a news portal that Lawas was a lawless district.“It is a damaging report as police here conduct raids and operations regularly to curb crime and other related cases including drugs,” Anthony said to The Borneo Post when contacted in Lawas yesterday.

According to Anthony, it is baseless for this news portal to say the authority is not taking any action against crime because the police there have statistics and reports of arrests of individuals and people involved in crime and drugs. As a law enforcement officer, he said, the situation in Lawas was normal and under control and it was not right for other people to tarnish the image of the district and the people there.

The news portal had reportedly said that the police have come under intense scrutiny in Lawas.

The report also stated that local people were angry over multiple reports of police brutality, inaction over syabu, metamphetamines and other drugs flooding the area. Anthony said the flooding of drugs in Lawas was only a made-up story as police personnel conduct numerous operations at pubs, kampungs and strategic places.

To support the claim, the Lawas police chief said as from Jan to Aug 23 this year police seized 300 ecstasy pills, 22.6gm of syabu and 0.9gm of ketamine.

At the same time, he said, Lawas police conducted 76 operations, out of which 14 operations were conducted at strategic places, 18 at entertainment outlets, six at hotels and 38 at specified operations and over 100 people were arrested for involvement in drugs.

Refuting the allegations by the news portal, Lawas Narcotics officer Inspector Suhaizam Mat Hassan said they conducted many raids on drug activities although they only managed to catch small-time drug addicts.

At the same time, he said they conducted vice raids.


August 24, 2010, Tuesday