Sabahans defend Chief Judge on Pakistanis

Ex Libaran MP should be cited for contempt of Court since the Chief Judge’s remarks were only directed at the many Pakistanis in the state who had dubious status.

KOTA KINABALU: Tamparuli assemblyman Wilfred Mojilip Bumburing has joined Penampang MP Darell Leiking and former PBS Secretary-General Henrynus Amin in criticizing a former Sabah MP, Akbar Khan, for asking Chief Judge of Sabah and Sarawak Richard Malanjum to apologise to Pakistanis in the state for remarks he made during a case last week,

Akbar, former Libaran MP who claims to be a citizen of Pakistani origin, said that his people were offended by Malanjum’s remarks made during the hearing of five Pakistanis charged with having bogus travel papers and entering into sham marriages with local women.

Malanjum, who remarked that Pakistanis were everywhere in the state, wondered what they were doing in Sabah and wanted them rounded up and questioned on their status. The Chief Judge couldn’t believe that there were so many Pakistanis eligible to stay in Sabah and said that the Director-General of Immigration should be held answerable.

Darell thinks that Akbar should be cited for contempt of Court since the Chief Judge’s remarks were not directed at people like him but the many Pakistanis in the state who had dubious status. The Chief Judge, he pointed out, was merely responding to what he heard from the Pakistanis in Court and “a statement by the prosecution calling for sterner action against Pakistanis who were deemed particularly a problem in the state”.

“Akbar is carrying freedom of speech too far,” said Darell. “The IGP should take action on this and not just go after Opposition lawmakers.”

Henrynus, who is a former Kinabalu MP, questioned Akbar’s claims to being a Pakistani “when Pakistan did not exist until 1947”. “If he has even an iota of loyalty in him, he should withdraw his statement against the Chief Judge, apologise and promise never to repeat them,” said Henrynus. “It’s unprecedented to accuse a Judge of racism.”

The issue is not Pakistanis or anyone else being in Sabah, he stressed, but their being in the state illegally, arming themselves with fake papers, getting into sham marriages with local women, bribing immigration officials and competing with locals in businesses that they can do.

The consensus in the social media is that Akbar should be questioned on how he became a citizen and represented in Parliament a seat where the people were all locals.

“The Pakistanis are a common sight in Sabah, even in the rural areas,” said Wilfred. “At first they are on bicycles selling textiles, later motorbikes and soon they end up doing the same business on four wheels.”

Selling textiles, the charge goes, is an ill-disguised form of money-lending. A RM60 item, for example, is sold at RM300 and payable in installments at RM5 per month. Before the RM300 is paid up, the unsuspecting customers are landed with several other items, using the same modus operandi, one item at a time in the following months. Those who defaulted on their payments, according to cases which appeared in Court, were even asked to pay in the form of sexual services.

Wilfred, added, that many of the Pakistanis are known to later flash their “fresh-from-the-oven” MyKads. “The question among locals is how these foreigners managed to get their hands on MyKads within a short time of their arrival in Sabah,” he said.

The recent arrests of eight immigration officers in connection with Pakistanis having MyKads, he pointed out, was only the tip of the proverbial iceberg. “If all those with fake papers alone in Sabah are rounded up, the prisons in the state won’t be enough to hold them. We have to send them to the peninsula.”

“Besides fake papers, there are others with genuine documents that they are not entitled to hold.”