Man wanting to avoid lock-up gives cops false info

A man who was taken to the Kajang police headquarters in violation of the movement control order (MCO) falsely claimed to be a participant of the recent tabligh programme at the Sri Petaling mosque, causing the police to call in a Health Ministry team.

The suspect had tried to avoid police lock-up when he made the claim at the CID office at the Kajang headquarters.

Kajang OCPD Asst Comm Ahmad Dzaffir Mohd Yussof said a team on patrol in Balakong spotted the man loitering around a condominium at around 2am on Monday.

“Our personnel advised him to go home but he refused to comply so he was arrested and taken to the Kajang police headquarters’ CID office for further action.

“During interrogation, the suspect told investigators that he was one of the participants of the recent tabligh gathering in Sri Petaling.

“Our personnel immediately isolated him and informed the Health Ministry,” he said after visiting the enhanced MCO area at Kampung Sungai Lui here yesterday.

A high number of the country’s Covid-19 cases have originated from the tabligh cluster, following the gathering held from Feb 27 to March 1 and attended by some 16,000 people, of whom 14,500 were Malaysians.

ACP Ahmad Dzaffir said Health

Ministry officials went to disinfect the CID offices as a precautionary measure while investigators spoke to the suspect’s family and friends.

“His relatives and friends all said the suspect was not a participant of the tabligh.

“We then interrogated the suspect again and he finally confessed that he had lied to us in order to avoid being remanded,” he said, adding that police were investigating the case for obstructing a civil servant from discharging his duties and Section 7(1) of the Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases Rules.

He said the suspect would also be investigated for giving false statements to public servants.

Meanwhile, ACP Ahmad Dzaffir said they detected a rise in online cheating cases involving sales of face masks on social media and e-commerce sites.

“Since March 9, we have opened investigations into 23 such cases involving losses of RM87,263.

“We predict that this number will go up if the public are not made aware of such fraud and more cautious,” he said.

He added that buyers could crosscheck the account details of the seller via http://ccid.rmp.gov.my/ semakmule or the status of the seller via biztrust.ssm.com.my.

Those with Android-based mobile phones can also instal the CHECK SCAMMER CCID application.