Abang Ahmad Abang Julai
KUCHING: District police chief here ACP Abang Ahmad Abang Julai yesterday said the police have not been instructed to check mobile phones during a roadblock.
“No, (there is) no such instruction,” he said when contacted for a response to a recording circulated on social media.
The recording began with a brief introduction of the sender followed by an account of a recent encounter with the police during a roadblock.
The sender claimed he was stopped by the police and prompted for not just his driving licence but also his mobile phone.
He said a policeman went through text and voice messages on his mobile device and asked if he was active in politics. When he gave a negative reply, he was then allowed to leave.
He further claimed that he later called a policeman friend to enquire about the incident and was told that the police were indeed checking mobile devices.
He said the policeman friend told him that mobile devices, which contained politics and religion-related messages, would risk being confiscated and that the owner might be dragged to court.
To this, Ahmad said the recording was rather baseless, however, adding that he had not listened to it.
He said police would ask for a person’s mobile device only when that particular person was under investigation.
“When under investigation, we do ask for their phones. The police cannot ask for your phone unnecessarily.”
Asked whether policemen could ask people to hand over their mobile devices during a roadblock, Ahmad said: “No, they (police) cannot just ask for your phone uncessarily unless you’re a suspect or suspicious character.”