Each candidate for personnel and officers of the Royal Malaysia Police (PDRM) for future recruitment must pass religious and moral tests. — Picture by Mukhriz Hazim

KUALA TERENGGANU, Dec 10 — Each candidate for personnel and officers of the Royal Malaysia Police (PDRM) for future recruitment must pass religious and moral tests.

PDRM’s managing director, Datuk Abd Rahim Jaafar, said this was to ensure that all members and police officers would have high values and integrity.

“Next year we expect the recruitment of 6,000 members and about 500 officers to fill the job vacancies.

“In addition to psychometric and attitude tests, each candidate must pass religious tests for Muslims and online tests for non-Muslims as well as during interview sessions before being accepted for training.

“A policeman’s job is to protect the public safety. But how can he be concerned if he (the police) has issues?” he told reporters after attending the Pingat Jasa Pahlawan Negara award presentation ceremony here today.

In addition, Abd Rahim said the emphasis on religious and moral values was made to address cases of misconduct among PDRM personnel, although the number of such cases was very small, less than one per cent.

About 300 members, officers and retired personnel received the medal presented by Menteri Besar Dr Ahmad Samsuri Mokhtar and attended by Terengganu Police Chief Datuk Aidi Ismail.

Abd Rahim added PDRM was also seeking assistance from universities to use technologies that could detect candidates who had previous drug problems.

“This is because we find that some of the policemen arrested in connection with drugs actually had a previous involvement before joining the service.

“This is what we are trying to avoid as it gives a bad image and reputation to the PDRM,” he said. — Bernama