KUALA LUMPUR: All premises (offices, businesses and shops) when dealing with the public are requested to mandate each individual to open the face mask for identification purposes at the service counter.
Kuala Lumpur police chief Datuk Rusdi Mohd Isa said this is to facilitate police investigations for facial recognition in the event of any criminal incident at the location involved.
“We request people who carry out deliveries or any business, to temporarily open their facemask for identification purposes. When wearing a mask, it is difficult to identify the face (of a person).
“The counter management can ask any individual to temporarily open the face mask for security reasons,” he said when commenting on the incident of a fake bomb threat at the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture (Motac) in Putrajaya last week.
He said this while attending the handing over of duties ceremony at the Kuala Lumpur Criminal Investigation Department (CID) between the former Kuala Lumpur JSJ Chief Datuk Habibi Majinji and the new Kuala Lumpur JSJ chief SAC Mohd Razali Mohd Idrus.
Habibi will take up the position of new Chief of Staff of Land Operations Eastern Sabah Security Command (ESSCOM) to replace Datuk M Chandrasekaran, 56, who died on June 1, while Mohd Razali was previously the Chief Assistant Director of Forensics (D10) Bukit Aman.
Rusdi said the installation of closed-circuit cameras at counters that focus on individual faces is also highly encouraged for the face recognition process to be clearer.
Regarding the issue of the fake bomb threat, he said police are still conducting a detailed investigation and in the final process of distributing a (photo-fit) sketch of the suspect.
When asked about the case of death threat received by Seputeh Member of Parliament Teresa Kok, he said police have a lead regarding the case, but it was doubtful and that the investigation was still ongoing.
