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KUALA LUMPUR: Putrajaya today promised to “liberate” the famous Petaling Street shopping area from being run by foreign merchants with gangster attitudes.
Edmund Santhara, the deputy minister for the Federal Territories, said he had received reports of a large number of foreign merchants opening shops without a license, some even engaging in prostitution.
“We want to liberate Petaling Street. If Petaling Street is full of foreign merchants, what does independence mean to the people of Kuala Lumpur?
“We are actively conducting operations. These are only the first stages and we will not stop until we are successful. We want to fulfill this responsibility that the people give us, we do not want to give in to political pressure.
“At the same time, I urge the public to channel any information related to the matter to the authorities for further action,” he told a press conference for an operation called Ops Tebah today.
The operation will be led by the Kuala Lumpur City Council (DBKL) in collaboration with the Department of Immigration, the police and the Islamic Religious Department of the Federal Territories.
Santhara said owners of premises run by unlicensed merchants involved in vice activities were believed to have hired “eyes” and installed closed-circuit television cameras at the site.
He added that this was one of the reasons why no arrests were made in raids at seven facilities in Kuala Lumpur today.
He said some of the facilities involved were also found to have renovated the building’s structure with secret doors built into grocery stores.
“The raids were carried out after surveillance for the past three weeks, which allowed us to trace the critical point of these immoral activities.
“We encountered problems during the operation since these facilities had ‘corridors’, CCTV, secret doors and renovated structures to detect the presence of police authorities.
In today’s raids, DBKL seized 78 items, including condoms, mattresses, and pillows. A total of 164 boards believed to be partitions of rooms intended for prostitution were also demolished and 55 fines were imposed.
