NRD lodges police report over '200,000 new citizenship' claims

The National Registration Department (NRD) today lodged a police report on the claims made by Twitter and Facebook accounts holder "Tengku Raja Alam Shah" regarding a posting titled '200,000 new recipients of citizenship vow to repay the government'.

Its director Ruslin Jusoh said the report was made at 11am today at the Putrajaya district police headquarters to enable the police to conduct an investigation into the claims as the article contained false information.

Speaking to reporters after lodging the report, Ruslin said the number of people stated in the claim was false and unreasonable as the process of obtaining citizenship was very complicated and involved a tight procedure.

“I hope police will conduct a thorough investigation into the holder of the Twitter and Facebook accounts.

“We also want to find out if the accounts are false or not. If they are legitimate, we ask that the account holder come to the NRD and give us the evidence for the claims he made,” he said.

He said the Home Ministry has also issued a statement yesterday denying the claims.

“The NRD views the allegations seriously as we have never issued 200,000 new citizenship certificates,” he said.

Yesterday, the NRD issued a statement denying the claims which went viral on the social media alleging that the Pakatan Harapan government had given out citizenship to 200,000 people.

The ministry said the allegations made by Twitter account-holder "Tengku Raja Alam Shah" were untrue as since the change of government in May last year, only 4,000 citizenship certificates were given to eligible people.

For the record, for the period from May 2018 until Sept 15 this year, the NRD received 19,788 applications for citizenship, and of these, only 4,422 were approved.

According to Ruslin, the NRD will also lodge a report with the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) tomorrow on the claims to enable it to conduct investigations and take further action.

“We view this matter seriously so that the public is not easily influenced by such claims which has affected its view of the NRD,” he said.

- Bernama