IGP rubbishes website's claims that three M'sian cities are Asia's most dangerous

KUALA LUMPUR: Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar today rebutted claims that three cities and a town in Malaysia were among Asia's most dangerous and crime-prone.
He said crimes in Malaysia were no different to that in other Asian countries and comparing the country and listing four places here as being highly dangerous is inaccurate.
"We disagree and rebut this claim. Those who have come here as tourists and seen for themselves will know how freely and safely they can walk the streets in the country without incident. There have been isolated cases of a few of the thousands of tourists here falling victims to crime but that does not make the named places the most dangerous in Asia. This is an unfair and lopsided claim," he said.
Khalid was responding to a report in a travel and world geography website which listed three cities and a town in Malaysia as Asia's most dangerous and crime-prone.
The website, worldatlas.com, had named 10 places in Asia as the "most dangerous cities in Asia" placing Kuala Lumpur in number two, Petaling Jaya in third, Klang fifth and Johor Baru 10th.
It claimed that the local cities and town were flooded with snatch thieves, scam artists and pickpockets who "grab every opportunity to loot a tourist or a local".
It also said that serious crimes involving physical violence, murder, rapes, and robberies are also commonly reported in Kuala Lumpur while violent turf wars between underworld gangs were a common occurrence in Petaling Jaya and Klang apart from other crimes.
Johor Baru was named as a city high in cases of pickpocketing and car thefts.
The website placed Karachi, Pakistan as the top crime-prone city, while other cities named were Quezon City, Manila, Dhaka in Bangladesh, Ulan Bataar (Mongolia) and Gurgaon in Haryana state, India.