ONE of the more active Twitter accounts by a government official has gone silent. And with it, his favourite hashtag #GoPDRMGo.

Inspector-General of Police Khalid Abu Bakar, or KBAB51 on Twitter, has been silent on the microblogging site since May 15, a day before a massive anti-graft operation that has so far netted 12 people, including eight police officers.

Just days earlier, Khalid had confirmed that police have also arrested 16 officers and policemen under a security law for involvement in drug syndicates.

Never has such a large number of policemen been arrested in Malaysia and never has Khalid kept quiet over the arrests on his favourite platform to communicate with his some 74,000 followers.

Khalid has had his @KBAB51 Twitter account since January 2010, three years before becoming IGP better known for using that particular social media to communicate with the public as well as his own men.

He has regularly used Twitter to inform the public of arrests, threaten action, congratulate his men for their arrests and raids signed off with his favourite hashtag #GoPDRMGo.

On May 15, he started the day by tweeting his thanks to his teachers and other teachers on Teachers Day, then proceeded to tweet about arrests of suspects from gambling syndicates and women suspected of being involved in vice.

But now only silence.

A far cry from the times Khalid used his Twitter account to order police to arrest civil rights activists and others for their remarks on the microblogging service.

He has been criticised for being soft on government ministers and pro-government activists while being hard on the opposition but Khalid has defended his policing work on Twitter.

“I’m monitoring sedition online because most of the irresponsible politicians and NGOs have a large following,” he told a Malaysian English daily in March 2015.

“I only absorb criticism that helps me or the force to become better. The rest I ignore. I will continue to do my job to maintain law and order. Critics can say what they want,” he added.

Apart from confirming arrests and promising more to ensure a clean force, the Royal Malaysia Police and its top officials have not said much about what has been an embarrassing time for the force.

Some 21 police officers have been arrested under the Security Offences (Special Measures) Act 2012 for suspected involvement in drug smuggling syndicates under Ops Kabbadi.

The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) arrested a total of 12 people, including eight police officers and men from Malacca, seizing RM1.44 million from the suspects, including RM800,000 from a corporal.

Several other officers have now been transferred out of the three Malacca police districts as Bukit Aman get to the bottom of the graft scandal. – May 24, 2017.