Herman shows the notice at the police station’s entrance, prohibiting owners from parking their cars in the police station.
SIBU: For crooks preying on vacant houses during Gawai, motorists have done the unthinkable – they parked smack in the police station before making tracks for the holidays.
What safer place could there be than to park in the police station compound? A place where no thieves will go as some enterprising motorists here cooked up the immunity of parking their cars in Sibu Central Police Station (CPS) while they leave town for the Gawai Dayak celebration.
This ‘Gawai proviso’ left Sibu Central Police Station chief ASP Herman Rakey scratching his head because since the weekend, when people started breaking off for Gawai, his police station was already jammed with cars.
“We believe the celebrants have parked them in our compound deliberately because they know this is the safest place for their cars. We also believe these are mostly celebrants who are returning to celebrate the Gawai Dayak.”
Herman rightly grumbled because most parking lots were taken up, leaving police officers with no parking lots.
He said a similar situation happened in previous Gawai and they had put up a notice at the entrance of the police station to call on public members not to take up their parking lots.He fervently hoped car owners would comply with this.
Meanwhile, it was bad luck for one car owner who parked his car in a yellow-line parking lot which is reserved for a police vehicle.
Herman said the car had been parked there since last Friday and they had been looking high and low for the owner.
He confirmed yesterday they were slapping the owner with a traffic summons. The owner felt so safe parking the car inside the police station that, as Herman confirmed, he left the doors unlocked.
He however noted a little backfire – the car insurance and road tax were overdue though he has not confirmed if they would act on this misdemeanour, given the goodwill of Gawai understandably.