He said the drop from 85,739 cases, during the same period last year, was encouraging and the result of drastic measures taken by police and other enforcement agencies in combating crime.

While cases like organised crime and armed robbery had gone down, Zahid, who is also home minister, said other crimes like snatch theft were still rampant.

Therefore, he wants the root causes of the problem to be exhaustively addressed so that such crimes like snatch thefts could also be lessened.

“We cannot feel comfortable with this drop (in the crime index), but we should discuss the causes of these crimes, which in the opinion of the Malaysia Crime Prevention Foundation (MCPF), can still be reduced,” he told reporters after chairing a meeting with the MCPF here today.

Zahid said from the meeting, the government also agreed to hold town hall discussions with all relevant parties, including community leaders and non-governmental organisations, to help reduce crime.

He said a discussion would be held as soon as possible at the national level and then in every state before being extended to the respective district police headquarters.

At the MCPF level, district committees had been formed to report on every crime-prevention activity carried out in each district, he added.

“This is just not for getting public feedback but to ensure that crime-prevention programmes and measures would be carried out.

“Besides that, we have also decided that all strategies and policies determined by the MCPF and Royal Malaysian Police will be followed up with a coordination meeting for implementation.”

Zahid said the implementation committee would meet every two months and offer solutions to the implementation problems, and this be reported to him and the MCPF exco for follow-up action to be taken.

Also present at the closed-door meeting were Deputy Inspector-General of Police Noor Rashid Ibrahim, MCPF Senior Vice-Chairman Lee Lam Thye and its two other vice-chairmen, Kamarudin Md Ali and Wira Ayub Yaakob.