Pix: SM AminKUALA LUMPUR: Come Sept 24, a new 'Hudud Act' will be tabled in Parliament. This was the claim made by PAS deputy president Datuk Mahfuz Omar at a news conference this morning.

He claimed not only a Hudud Act will be tabled at the upcoming Parliament sitting, but that Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz would be the one tabling it.

"Umno has agreed to have Datuk Nazri to represent Datuk Seri Najib Razak in tabling a new Hudud Act. This would be the implementation of Hudud at the Federal level," he told reporters at the PAS headquarters.

However, he did not specify the contents of the Act, as Pakatan Rakyat itself was waiting to see what was going to be presented.

In the same conference, Mahfuz, who is Pokok Sena MP, also questioned the impartiality of the police force. He said the mishandling of several political incidents which had involved violence showed the law enforcement's failure in being impartial when dealing with such cases.

"We look at recent incidents such as when a bunch of BN (Barisan Nasional) hooligans had caused a fracas at the PKR headquarters, and the PKR bus attack… police have yet to take action against the people, clearly BN supporters, for the violent act they imposed.

"But when photos of our prime minister and his wife were stomped on during the Merdeka eve event, police went the extra mile and formed a special task force to hunt down the 11 suspects involved. There are other bigger issues, such as crime that needs to be dealt with," he said.

Mahfuz said the police practices double-standards by not looking into Pakatan cases despite reports being lodged. He said this shows the police are either 'protecting the BN' or that they 'have no jurisdiction to manage such cases'.

He added that if this problem is left unattended, it may disunite people and cause chaos nationwide.

Meanwhile, in an immediate response, Nazri said a Hudud Act would not be tabled in Parliament.

"There's no such thing," he told Malaysian Digest when contacted today.

When asked to elaborate on his response, if it meant that such an Act could have been discussed in Parliament before but it was shot down, or if there never was such a discussion before, Nazri replied via text message that Mahfuz's statement was "more of a lie".


-- mD