After two years as a member of an elite commando unit in the Army, Ahmad Mohd Arshad, became Mat Kommando and between 2002 and 2002 committed 52 military style armed robberies throughout the country netting him RM2.5 million in cash.
Bentong Kali started a life of crime at 14 by joining Gang 04. In 1991 he relocated to KL, joined the Gang 08 and, within a few months, had his own "Gang 04 Jalan Klang Lama" based in (where else?) Old Klang Road! In the next two years, in between dealing with drugs, extortion and robbery, he murdered 16 people. It took a Police task force of 200 cops to finally tracked him down in the early hours of 29th Jun 1993 to a house in Medan Damansara where he was shot dead by a sharpshooter's bullet to his head.
At he age of 18 Wong Swee Chin committed his first armed robbery and soon graduated to banks, clubs, illegal gambling dens, armoured trucks and temples. Notorious for shooting first and never asking questions Wong soon became Botak Chin and even attempted an assassination on DSP S.Kulasingam tasked with capturing him. Botak Chin was finally tracked down to a Sawmill in Jalan Ipoh, KL and in the ensuing gun battle, Botak Chin took 6 bullets before he was captured and finally hanged in June 1981.
These were the villains of our past who terrorise the public, and, while they lived, led a life of crime and what ever wealth that the proceeds of these crimes brought them.
This morning it occurred to me that in those days the good guys and the bad guys were on opposite side of the divide. We always wanted the Police to win. We knew that Justice will be served because the bad guys will be caught and punished and will meet their end one way or the other - at the hands of the police (always after an epic gun battle) or at the gallows as ordained by the courts.
Consider today.
The line between the good and bad guys have become blurred. The bad guys no longer carry guns or hand grenades. Today the bad guys wear uniforms and call themselves champions of the people and at times, unashamedly, warriors!
And today the good guys are the bad guys complicit in "defending" the "good guys" who have turned rogue....and none do this better than this Twit here!
The good guys who are now the bad guys steal in billions and have so much money in their personal bank accounts that RM42 million can be lost in translation. Who needs to join the 04 or 08 gang, face gun battles with the police at Medan Damansara, at a Sawmill in Jalan Ipoh or risk the gallows when you can have a Saudi Prince "donate" RM2.6 billion into your personal bank account without breaking a sweat and billions more siphoned from 1MDB and other government entities!
And if anyone is to be blown up with hand grenades or explosives it will be done by the once good guys to unarmed Mongolian national using C4 available only to the "good guys".
How is one to know good from the bad, right from wrong, and what is legal and what is not with the present state of affairs in our nation today? The IGP tweets while the prime minister, in his greed for wealth, is indiscreet. Our judiciary is suspect allowing our politicians to steal without being detected. Government are complicit in crimes while public officials whose trustworthiness and ability to serve the public are woefully in deficit. And in all this the Rakyat is shafted and treated by their elected leaders much worst than deadbeats!
Today the likes of Mat Kommando, Bentong Kali and Botak Chin all have "skills" much in demand by those who strut the corridors of power in Putrajaya. It may need for hell to freeze over before the good guys and the bad guys once again take opposing sides and revert back to those time when good, right and legal line up on one side while bad, wrong and illegal are banished to the other to fight that fight that they should never win....never ever win!
Until then the ghosts of Mat Kommando, Bentong Kali and Botak Chin will wander through the corridors of power locked in step with the hubris, arrogance and greed that political dominance unfortunately confers upon those who can see no further than their nose and listen but do not hear the kelohan of the Rakyat.
No comments:
Post a Comment