Pump boat capable?
Malaysians in Sabah are very concerned about the fate of two fellow Malaysians who were abducted off Semporna Coast, now three weeks passed without any new development.
Sabahans in particular, are equally concerned about the statement made by the Sabah Commissioner of Police Datuk Noor Rashid Ibrahim. So far it has been a kind of uncertainty in people’s mind not just about the missing of two Sabahans but the way the police authority is handling the issue in Sabah with regard to pirates.
According to media report, the two Sabahans on 7th January, the manager and the supervisor of seaweed farm were abducted at night at their seaweed farm in Pulau Sebangkat about 8 km off Samporna coast.
Datuk Noor Rashid mentioned that the abductors were using riffles and machete, and escaped using a pump boat.
A pump boat is a small light boat, predominantly used by Filipinos in this part of the region (see pictures above)
In his statement on January 11th, Datuk Noor Rashid said, the abductors were still in Sabah.
He also mentioned all exist points have been sealed off and surrounded by police and other agencies, such as-Royal Malaysian Police, Malaysian Navy and Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agencies.
Was informed that unlikely for the abductors to escape. He is also of the opinion that the abductors could be local whose interest was purely for money.
Earlier before the incident there was a commotion among the workers over their wages, and that could be the reason of abduction. God knows!
As such the abductors aren’t belonging to any terrorist group like Abu Sayyaf of southern Philippines.
What can we make out of the Sabah Commissioner Police statement so far?
To me this is very understatement by the Sabah Commissioner of Police, Datuk Noor Rashid Ibrahim. He is portraying to the general public in Malaysia that the incident is a small and trivial, for example, using riffles and machete is not typical of pirates of Abu Sayyaf members.
The impression; this is not a serious incident.
Since the abductors aren’t using an automatic weapons it means a petty criminal, and the abductors are local.
With regard to using pump boat Datuk Noor Rashid must be mistaken as to its efficiency both in deep as well as in shallow water. Ask any one who are familiar with this look like flying skate-boat, in fact very capable in crossing Sulu Sea with little difficulty.
My rebuttal to this statement is that the abductors aren’t Sabahans, this is because Sabahans aren’t allowed by the authority for sometime now to use pump boat of this kind.
We Sabahans still think that the abductors are Filipinos from the Southern notorious region of Philippines.
It is hard to imagine the logic that the Sabah police and other enforcement agencies could seal off all the exit points of 1,500 km coastal area of Sabah East Coast. If in fact police and other agencies could seal all exist points why can’t they stop the inflow of illegal immigrants from coming in to the country when they could use the same method.
It is also in everyone’s knowledge that our marine aren’t that efficient in responding to incident of this kind due to logistic problem, assuming that the marine boat is docked in Tawau at that time, imagine again how long it takes to reach Semporna? By the time the Marine Police reaches Semporna’s coast the abductors are already having their barbeque somewhere in Philippines.
According my friend, a senior retired police officer recently that statement by the Sabah Police Chief was unconvincing to the police let alone to the people who are familiar with situation in Sabah East Coast.
It’s unlikely the police will catch the pirates using pump boat after lapsing of two hours for the reason I mentioned above.
With reference to Marine boat again, according to my source, it’s only about 50%-60% of Marine boats are serviceable in the State. It’s poorly financed.
Our Sabah police have not been very successful in catching or prosecuting many pirates in the past in the State; I wouldn’t think this one is so different?
There is also no logic for the abductors to stay put in Sabah knowing they could reach the nearest safe heaven in less than two hours.
Among the problems, according to my friend, the police personnel from Peninsula who are posted in Sabah are less familiar and knowledgeable with the people in this area compare with Sabahans. Yet when talking about distribution of senior police officers, of all seven Departments of PDRM in Sabah only one Department is headed by a Sabahan. Of all the twenty District Chiefs, only four are headed by Sabahans, chances are no Sabahans headed any district in Peninsula.
Not to undermine or be little our Police ability to policing Sabah’s water in the East Coast, in my view even identifying who are Malaysians and who are not can be a problem, to go further they have now to identify among those lookalike who are the pirates and who are not. It’s an intricate subject.