Senior Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob said the police may sometimes deny permission for interstate travel if they doubt the veracity of the reasons given in the application. ― Picture by Hari Anggara
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KUALA LUMPUR, May 4 — Senior Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob today appeared to sidestep an opportunity to firmly instruct all Malaysians — including famous personalities — to not carry out interstate travel unless they have valid reasons.
In a press conference this afternoon, a reporter had highlighted that there appeared to be exemptions given to those who are famous to carry out interstate travel with “unreasonable reasons”, and had asked the minister if he could give a stern explanation for all to follow standard operating procedures for Covid-19 when it comes to interstate travel.
Ismail Sabri then proceeded to say that the power to allow or disallow interstate travel lies with the police depending on the reasons given in applications, but stopped short of touching on the issue of famous personalities allegedly crossing state lines with unreasonable excuses.
He said the exemption for interstate travel is still limited to matters such as deaths of family members.
“Ok, the power to menahan (stop) anyone who crosses states is a power given to the police at roadblocks, so I believe there are no exemptions for the issue of interstate travel, except for the few matters that I mentioned just now, but with the permission from the police still required to be obtained.
“For example, there is a family member’s death, being ill until the person is dying, interstate travel is still allowed for that. But for any other cases, the power to approve lies with the police. Fill in the form for the police station and apply for the police’s permission,” he said.
He said the police may however sometimes deny permission for interstate travel if they doubt the veracity of the reasons given in the application.
“I was told, for weekends, the application for interstate travel is up to 40,000 a day, so sometimes the police also thinks about it, sometimes the police does not allow as the police is kurang yakin (not so confident) about the reasons given. But as I said, the power we have given it to the police, so the police is the one that will allow or not allow,” he added.
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