KUCHING, Nov 27 ― The Sarawak General Operations Force (GOF) is always vigilant in carrying out the tasks of safeguarding the country’s borders even though there were no armed smugglers reported in the state.

Sarawak Police Commissioner Datuk Aidi Ismail said most of the smuggling cases occurred at the Malaysia-Indonesia borders and in the Sarawak waters where a special team is tasked to flush out such activities in the areas.

"We cannot take the recent fatal shootout at the Malaysia-Thailand border lightly, and we will continue to ensure that our personnel carries out border patrols in a continued state of preparedness to face unseen threats,” he said during a press conference here today.

 In the incident early on Tuesday, Sergeant Baharuddin Ramli, 54, was killed while his colleague Sergeant Norihan a/l Tari, 39, was seriously injured in a shootout with a group of smugglers, about 600 metres from the TS9 control post in Padang Besar, Perlis.

Earlier, Aidi witnessed the handover of duty ceremony between the new Sarawak CID head SAC Mat Zani @ Mohd Salahuddin Che Ali with ACP Zulfikar Mohd Ghazali at the Sarawak police contingent headquarters here.

Meanwhile, Mohd Salahuddin, in his speech, is optimistic of reducing the crime index of the state and hoped that all Sarawak police contingent departments will work with him.

"The crime index in Sarawak averages 40 cases and below per day and I believe it can be further lowered,” said the new state CID chief, who has been serving the police force for 25 years. ― Bernama