PUTRAJAYA, Feb 14 — The Home Ministry (KDN) will not compromise with any member of the Royal Malaysia Police (PDRM) with disciplinary issues or who violates work ethics, its minister Datuk Seri Saifuddin Nasution Ismail said.

At a press conference here today, he said to safeguard the image and reputation of the force, such offences cannot be taken lightly as they have an impact on other members and lead to distrust among the public.

"I won’t be defensive about this. As the largest enforcement agency in the country, our approach is zero tolerance.

"We cannot merely say that this involves only a few cases... we need to take the right approach, which is zero tolerance without any compromise,” he said, while adding that the offences committed by some policemen were unfair to the over 120,000 other PDRM members.

Of late, several cases of disciplinary issues, violation of ethics, corruption and crimes among police personnel have been reported by the media.

Saifuddin said every offence committed will be referred to the Police Force Commission for further action.

When asked, he said there was no need to review the police force recruitment criteria as the number of applicants remains high, with between 35,000 and 40,000 applications received when vacancies for the position of Inspector were opened.

"I asked the interview panel, and I was informed that applicants are multi-talented, proficient in various languages, and some are practicing lawyers, with professional-level qualifications. This shows that interest in a police career is still high,” he said. — Bernama