PLAINCLOTHES police officers are not deployed on the ground to enforce the Covid-19 standard operating procedure (SOP), said Inspector-General of Police Abdul Hamid Bador.

He told The Malaysian Insight that only uniformed officers are deployed to perform enforcement duties to ensure people are adhering to the SOP.

And in cases where officers without uniform are involved, they must have their police vest on to indicate that they are the police, he said.

“All enforcement tasks on the ground are being undertaken by teams of uniformed officers and men. That’s the standing instruction.

“Only in specific cases when detectives are employed, are they allowed to put on a police vest.”

Hamid, however, did not elaborate on what these specific cases were.

He was responding to queries after allegations emerged recently of people being fined by plainclothes policemen for breaching the SOP, such as for not wearing masks, or travelling in vehicles with more than the allowed number of passengers.

Auto repair business owner Melissa Yap, whose workshop is in Taman Segar, Cheras, said recently several plainclothes policemen issued a fine to one of her customers for taking off his mask.

The customer, a 60-year-old man, had come to get a tyre replaced and while waiting in the garage, which was hot and stuffy, removed his mask for a moment.

He had followed the other SOP, including scanning his entry with his MySejahtera app.

“In less than five minutes, several plainclothes policemen walked in, asked for his identification card and issued him a fine,” she said about the October 27 incident.

The customer still had the mask in the hand at the time and it was obvious he had only just removed it.

“The police could have advised him to put on the mask again instead of issuing a fine right away.”

Kepong MP Lim Lip Eng also cited a case in his constituency where a middle-aged woman was fined when she withdrew money from a bank.

“The woman approached the police at the front door and asked if she could go in, to which the police replied yes.

“When she came out of the bank, the woman received a ticket for not having scanned her registration before entering the bank.

“The woman was crying when she called our service centre. She felt that the police officer had deliberately tested her.”

Lim’s service centre received more than 50 complaints in the span of two days recently.

One involved a young man who had just completed registration procedures before entering the premises. He was also wearing a mask.

“Two plainclothes police stepped up and identified themselves. They said they had a photo of him with his mask not covering his nostrils.

“The young man felt he had obeyed the SOP and insisted on seeing the photo. However, the police refused and implied that the young man could give them a bribe in order to be let off,” he said.

Lim said the young man stood his ground but got issued a RM1,000 fine. – November 21, 2020.