By Jaythaleela K
MIRI, Apr 2: Miri police were dispatched to Sarawak United Peoples’ Party (SUPP) Senadin branch in Bandar Baru Permyjaya on Thursday morning after a hundred people thronged the premise to collect dried food rations, despite Movement Control Order (MCO) restrictions.
An observation made this morning as early as 8am was that a majority of the crowd did not wear any face masks or practise social distancing while queuing up to collect the food ration at SUPP Senadin branch.
According to Miri Police chief ACP Lim Meng Seah, they rushed to the scene around 10am to disperse the crowd.
“We received a distress call this morning after the situation went out off control, ” stated Lim when contacted today.
Fortunately, there was no untoward incident as police managed to disperse the crowd in time.
“The crowd was well behaved and listened to our instructions when we told them to disperse,” he said.
There were no arrests made.
Meanwhile, SUPP Senadin chairman Datuk Lee Kim Shin, who is also Sarawak Transport Minister, has blamed it on erroneous news circulating on the food distribution.
The crowd of about 100 people were mostly come from Tudan, Permyjaya and Pujut areas.
“All the food ration will be delivered to the respective kampung,” he said.
It is learnt that the constituents were prompted to gather in front of the building after witnessing a lorry unloading food rations there, said Lee.
He added the food rations have been placed in the service centre to be distributed to about 18 villages and longhouses through village chiefs and village security and development committee (JKKK).
“SUPP Senadin Service Centre has always been assisting our constituents especially the needy and underprivileged, and recently we had received instructions from the state government for Pusat Khidmat to arrange food aid delivery.
“We had asked the village chiefs and community leaders to send us the name list of villagers under the B40 group who need this aid.
“We have never asked the villagers personally to collect it from here on their own, somebody must have viralled fake news telling them to come here,” said Lee when contacted today. —DayakDaily
