We are in Malaysia, aren't we?

This is bloody frightening. We are in Malaysia, aren’t we?

Yet we learn that Dr Nasruddin Aspan, the Klang Municipal Council (MPK) health director has had to resign his job out of fear for his and his family's safety after being attacked and threatened sometime late last year.

According to Dr Nasruddin, on Nov 27, as he was leaving his home in Taman Menegun Indah for work, a group of men in a one-tonne lorry rammed into his Naza Citra, and then attacked him with a machete and iron rods.

It’s a miracle with such an assault he only sustained bruises and a deep gash to the left side of his head, which nevertheless was serious enough to require eight stitches.

The Klang Municipal Council then deployed enforcement officers to Dr Nasruddin’s house to protect him and his family. But WTF, where’s the police involvement?

As if that wasn’t enough, 10 days later Dr Nasruddin received a phone call telling him to quit his job or risk losing his life. The caller had also threatened to harm his family.

I need to ask what have the police done (or not done) so far, that a senior public servant deemed it necessary to leave his job out of fear for his family’s safety from threats by gangsters.

I ask again: we are in Malaysia, aren’t we?

One doesn’t have to be a rocket scientist to link the assault to his health inspection job. Therefore what had been the particular inspection that Dr Nasruddin conducted that invited the unmitigated thuggery. Surely the police can start from this premise?

This is no longer a personal matter for Dr Nasruddin to decide. This is very serious intimidation stuff, terrorism of a kind with public interest. The police must step in immediately. And I call upon our politicians, those from the BN or opposition, to raise this matter of urgent public security in Parliament.

Meanwhile, Immigration Department director-general Ishak Mohamed tells us that since he was elevated to the post, he had been worried about the safety of his family. He confessed that he and his family hardly eat out because of fear of poisoning.

Then, my confidence as a Malaysian in my own country was further assaulted (indeed I just couldn’t believe my eyes) when I read him saying: “I do not like this job and I did not want to be appointed to the post.”

Elevated to director-general of Immigration! And he is scared of some possible ‘troublesome’ foreigners? What happen to those times when public servants like Ishak Mohamed would be striving hard to get such an exalted position?

We are in Malaysia, aren’t we?

To illustrate his fears, Ishak Mohamed revealed that one day when he was on holiday with his family he was ‘shocked’ by a group of Bangladeshis approaching him to say ‘hello’. He was even more petrified when he learnt from them that “every Bangladeshi” in Malaysia know him.

Why is a Malaysian senior public servant, heading the Immigration Department, sh*t scared of being known by Bangladeshis or for that matter any foreigner? Yes, why does a Malaysian in Malaysia have to fear any foreigner?

But we are in Malaysia, aren’t we?

What’s going on with these two cases of senior public servants so fearful of threats to their and their family safety, that both don’t want their departmental top jobs, and in all probability, couldn't do their jobs effectively because of concerns for their familys' safety?

One is understandably fearful of thugs while the other, the more serious, bizarre and most unacceptable case, claims to be fearful of Bangladeshis.

Surely we are in Malaysia, aren’t we, that we haven’t surrendered our immigration control to Bangladeshis invaders?

The police must answer why they haven’t or couldn’t provide for the security of our citizens and the confidence for them to live their lives and do their jobs without fear or favour, especially senior public service officers in important positions that are vital to national security.

Because if they don’t, soon we will have Malaysian judges, ministers and perhaps even the leaders of our security forces (police, military) trembling in fear of thugs and foreigners.

We are in Malaysia, aren’t we, but now I wonder?