PONTIAN: The situation became chaotic among “Sinar” party supporters when the “Book” party candidate was announced the winner of Tanjung Piai parliamentary by-election, outside the Dewan Jubli Intan Sultan Ibrahim, near here yesterday afternoon.
The situation became even more alarming when supporters of the “Sinar” Party refused to disperse and caused a riot by kicking cans and provoking the authorities as they were dissatisfied with the by-election results.
When they refused to disperse, members of the Federal Reserve Unit (FRU) began to form a barricade and warned the supporters to leave. Unfortunately the warning was ignored and they reacted by burning posters.
The situation escalated as supporters threw “water bombs” at FRU assets until the FRU unit had to fire “water cannon” to try to disperse the angry supporters.
The tear gas was also released following the supporters refusing to follow orders. The situation finally calmed down when the unruly supporters were arrested by the authorities.
This was part of the scenario in the by-election simulation training undertaken by the Royal Malaysian Police (PDRM) of the Johor Contingent at the Dataran Majlis Daerah Pontian, here.
The simulation, which began at 4.30pm until 6pm, involved 250 members and officers from three units namely the FRU, the Light Strike Force (LSF) and the Public Order and Riot Unit (Poru).
Johor police chief Datuk Mohd Kamarudin Md Din, who attended the simulation exercise said it was held to test PDRM’s preparedness in the face of Tanjung Piai by-election on Nov 16.
On the whole, he was satisfied with the training that showed readiness by all its members.
“However, we are going to conduct a post mortem on what happened this afternoon as we want to improve coordination between Poru and LSF,“ he said. — Bernama
