Malaysia will not legalise online gambling; warns against registering in Singapore

Police probing boot camp incident in which school girls were made to wade through pit with a snake.

Online gambling
Representative image Reuters

Malaysia's Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar has clarified that it is an offence for Malaysians to register with Singapore online gambling services.

Online gambling still remains illegal in Malaysia even though Singapore has eased its online gambling ban. "There are enough channels for people to gamble here, such as Magnum, Toto and so on...As long as a person is in Malaysia and he registers with the Singaporean online sites, he will have to face the music," Khalid said, according to The Star.

The police chief also reiterated that Malaysia has no plans to legalise online gambling in the courtry.

The announcement came after Khalid attended a ceremony to honour former orang asli from the Senoi Praaq troupe on the occasion of the 47th anniversary of the VAT 69 commandos unit on Sunday. He also added that Malaysian police are in the process of enforcing stricter gambling laws to nab the offenders.

When asked about the primary school girls who were made to run through a muddy pit with a snake as part of jungle training exercise, the police officer said they are not targeting the two people involved in recording the video clip as their statements had to be recorded for the police to know what exactly happened during the boot camp. However, the clip nevertheless raised an outcry after it went viral.

"We are not shooting the messenger. They are the first-hand witnesses and we need to know about the training, so their statements were taken," he said, according to the news portal.

On 19 October, it was reported that at a team building event at the Kuala Kangsar Civil Defence Force headquarters, a group of 45 schoolgirls from SK Beluru in Kuala Kangsar were asked to wade through a pit containing a snake.

"All of them, including the two, have cooperated with us in the investigation, so there is no need for people to comment that the two main witnesses must be protected under the Whistleblower Protection Act," Khalid said, according to the news portal, adding that 21 statements have been recorded from witnesses over the case.

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