This is a question that many Malaysians, apparently including the Prime Minister, are asking themselves about deputy IGP Noor. The number two in the PDRM hierarchy appears to think that what he called “strict action” is needed to prevent the Malaysian public from expressing any views at all about the recent abdication.

Malaysia has just emerged from a dictatorship in the maintenance of which the PDRM played a prominent part and it appears that some of the PDRM hierarchy have not got the message. Not even after the Prime Minister himself made the point clear.

If the views expressed by this very senior police officer had come instead from a newly recruited constable that might have been excusable as raw ignorance. But such an excuse cannot apply to the deputy IGP. He is clearly lost in an outdated world of subservience to absolute monarchy and his best course, perhaps, would be to “abdicate” also; and soon.